At Duty's End
by DrakeTheTraveller
Summary: Awakening lost, confused, and possessing no memory of how he arrived, a spartan finds himself stranded on a world far more alien than any before it. Bereft of everything but his sense of duty and distorted morality, The Lone Wolf of Reach must come to terms with his purposeless existence as he is dragged into a conflict he wanted no part in. Spiritual successor to Heart of Iron.
1. Chapter 1

Unwanted Revelations

He awoke to smoke and fire.

A thick, black miasma of carbonized smog shrouded his vision in obscurity, the helmet sealed to his armor likely all that had prevented him from suffocating in his insentience. Indolent with excess fatigue and beset by a head splitting migraine, he fought to focus through the fugue of misperception hanging over his wakefulness. Driven by instinct where training was otherwise hindered, he tried to gather some kind of situational report, concentrating first on himself.

The interior of his helm was as dark and silent as the void, the electronics of his Heads Up Display drained of power for reasons as of yet clarified, but nevertheless alarming. His armor's systems were military-grade, and as such, supposedly impervious to most forms of electromagnetic interference. That something could have disabled or otherwise inhibited his equipment was cause for concern, but given the unrecalled context of his situation, could be deliberated at a later moment in time when he could afford to think.

After all, where there's smoke, there's fire.

The dampening capabilities of his headgear introduced an unusual surrealism as he bathed in unseen flames.

He could feel the heat of fire lick the hulking and yet elegant contours of his armor, the orange glow of the conflagration concealed within the impenetrable pollution of black smoke. And though he could feel it, he could not see it. His vision nullified by the murky haze, and yet still aware of the blaze that had consumed him, the man shifted into motion.

As he moved he gathered a sense of awareness for his environment, a twisted realm of shattered steel and boiling earth. Yet he could not move far, a great weight lay across the breadth of his torso, a burning chunk of warped steel that must have weighed well over four-hundred pounds. Grumbling in irritation, he braced his palms across the cumbersome alloy and with a quite grunt of exertion, tossed it aside.

With his movement no longer restricted, he made an attempt to stand that failed part way. He staggered forwards as the muscles in his right thigh struggled to obey commands around the metal object with which they were impaled. Though he could hardly see in this clouded soup of blackened air, he could feel the scorching shrapnel tunneled deep into the meat of his leg.

A grim rictus split across his lips as he clawed away from the fiery wreckage, his gauntlets tearing furrows into the scorched earth around him as he pulled himself forwards, the heat dissipating as he distanced himself from the epicenter of the devastation. Once clear of the smoke and fire he allowed himself the brief respite necessary to study his environment, hoping it would restore to him the pieces of his holed memory.

The lumbering forms of great trees loomed over him, a swath of shadowed vegetation that smoldered with a sickly orange glow as the light of the fire danced through the dark. And above a pale moon cast a pastel shadow across an unfamiliar night sky.

Returning his gaze earthwards, he watched flames consume the debris of some great metal contraption that had carved a deep gully into the terrain. Uprooted trees and burning vegetation littered the landscape, torn from their roots by some immense sharpened force. The somewhat symmetrical design of the object, even in its current form, kindled his memory incompletely. Though it had lost its grander, the YSS-1000 Sabre possessed a memorable fuselage that was unique from most UNSC vehicles.

He recalled in that moment, the vestige of his last waking memory, tarnished as it was by his muddled thoughts. Reach had fallen, forcing the remaining UNSC forces into full retreat all across the system. He had… remained behind to protect a halcyon cruiser as it attempted to breach atmosphere.

Everything after that was a pained blur, scattered flashes of indistinct memory that induced a migraine at every attempt to perceive them.

He scanned the sky once more, noting the absence of Covenant warships in low orbit, or indeed the second moon that had circumnavigated the planet. The disappearance of alien starships he might have believed. It was not impossible to consider their departure after the alien armada's overwhelming victory, but the absence of Reach's second satellite was far more improbable. As far as he was aware of Covenant technology, they as of yet did not possess the means or desires to destroy small planetoids, and if they had there would have been debris left in the wake of such a cataclysmic event.

With this information he could only surmise that he was no longer on Reach, a startling, but adaptable revelation. While concerning, it was as of yet not as an important admission as the discovery of his means of transportation having been destroyed, in most probability stranding him on a world that was as of yet unidentified. However he did not give in to despair.

There wasn't much he had not been trained to deal with.

The man rose to his feet, favoring his injured leg as he returned to the crash site and lingered at the edge of the impact crater in wait for at least most of the fires to recede. Once the heat was somewhat tolerable, he examined the wreckage for any weapons or supplies he could still salvage.

He found a battle rifle amidst the wreck, though it had been ruined in the flames. The barrel was shorn off and the stock had been split apart, no doubt a result of the ammunition in the magazine cooking off in the inferno. He tossed the broken weapon to the side as he continued his search. Fifteen minutes spent in futility and he had almost given up, until he noticed a supply trunk buried under a mound of upturned earth. Rationalizing that it had been tossed about in the crash, and protected from the fire after it had been buried; he exhumed the metal crate and dragged it to the tree line where he could study it away from the smoldering remains of his strike craft.

The case was locked and protected by a passcode he did not have or otherwise could not remember. Unwilling to waste time, and somewhat irritated by the obstruction, he smashed the keypad under a plated fist. Giving off a fizz and a spark, the crate unlocked with a muted tone and he hurriedly ripped the lid off the trunk to inspect its contents.

In his examination, his lips twitched with the faintest flicker of a grin as he extracted the first weapon sitting at the top. Like most UNSC armaments it was large, bulky, and extremely deadly. A quick inspection revealed that it had been undamaged by the crash, and after opening a small box and removing a handful of shells, he loaded the shotgun and secured it to the magnetic strip on his armor's spinal plating.

Returning to the crate he withdrew a sleek, matte black handgun that he quickly slotted onto his left thigh plate. Further in, he found a SOCOM variant MA37 rifle as well as a few cans of biofoam, two weeks' worth of MRE's, two cans of C-7, and half a dozen fragmentation grenades in a small protective case.

Somewhat surprised at the rather impressive arsenal, he examined the supply crate for some form of identification, finding _PROPERTY OF THE OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE,_ scrawled across the far side in big, threatening italics.

He shrugged.

Technically, with no other UNSC presence in the vicinity, ownership of the weaponry and supplies would fall onto him.

The spartan spent several minutes unloading the magazines and other supplies from inside the trunk, securing them in the various cases spread about his armor. Near the end of his unpacking he discovered one last item at the very bottom of the case, a combat knife with a non-reflective coating and self-sharpening blade, which slid easily into the sheath on his right shoulder.

Now properly armed and equipped, the augmented soldier felt the slightest hint of reprieve in this uncertain situation.

While securing inventory, the spartan ran a reboot on his Mjolnir's electronic systems. Once his HUD was restored he hoped to be able to contact any UNSC assets in range. Hopefully from there he could either find a means off the planet, or he would accept at the bare minimum new standing orders. He hadn't received new directives since he delivered the package, and was somewhat unnerved by the lack of direction.

As he adjusted the ACOG scope on his rifle, his HUD sputtered into existence. Relief washed over him as he watched its software update and reconnect to his armor's systems. Even before it finished reinstalling, he activated his long range transceiver and attempted to attach his signal to any local UNSC broad band transmissions.

The silence he received was foreboding, lacking even the static garble of a bad receiver. It was as if there simply was no signal to piggyback on.

Troubled, he attempted to access any low band communications following UNSC codes, only to be met with a similar response.

That… was not good.

There was only one reason he could think of why he could not attain a successfully link. Wherever he was, whatever planet he was on, was not connected to a UNSC TACNET. Either that or there were no military or commercial satellites to bounce the signal off of.

That was... significantly worse.

If there was no TACNET, chances are there would be no UNSC presence planetside or otherwise. His stranding here on this world was more problematic than he had at first predicted. The probability of getting off this rock and reconnecting with allied forces was proving to be more and more unlikely.

The spartan wracked his brain, trying to recall anything that might help explain where he was or how he got here. But for all his efforts, his memories after the _Autumn's_ departure were at that moment unrecoverable.

A soft _ping_ interrupted his thoughts, and the human supersoldier glanced to his motion tracker, noting with some measure of alarm, the trio of large sensor returns closing in on his position from a hundred meters to his left.

Not a second later his HUD was finally restored, and with it his external audio transmitter, allowing him to hear the low rumble of approaching vehicles.

Too little too late...

The spartan glanced to his ship's crash site, the fires finally having died as a waning trail of silvery vapor trailed up into the atmosphere. The soldier realized that his crash must have been noticed by whatever locals lived on this planet, and that the smoke trail had given away his position. He debated for a moment, the logic and probability of UNSC forces coming for retrieval, and swiftly banished the notion as hopefully moronic. Yet he did not think it was the Covenant, he hadn't picked up on the presence of their military net, nor did the vehicles approaching possess the unearthly whine of their uncanny technology.

He considered the possibility of insurrectionist roots, but remained uncertain. Unless they used a different satellite network, he should have been able to at the least pick up on their transmissions.

Either way he would not dawdle out in the open while potential enemy forces moved in to secure the location, nor would he vacate the area without first learning who the investigators were. Looking back to the tree line, he noticed a particularly large oak, with thick branches.

Unsheathing his knife, he sprinted towards the tree and catapulted upwards, jamming the blade deep into the bark. Working quickly, he scaled its height and lightly balanced on the thickest branch he could find. Once secure, he faded into the trees shadow, matching the movement of his body with the sway of the leaves on the breeze.

Though his memory of Reach was questionable, he had not forgotten his training.

He watched from his concealed position as a trio of headlights pierced the gloomy shadows of the makeshift clearing, illuminating the sabre's wreckage as the vehicles pulled to a stop at the lip of the crater. The spartan studied them intently; curious to note that they neither resembled UNSC nor Covenant manufacture, though they did somewhat bear a resemblance to human engineering.

Insurrectionists?

Possibly, but unlikely. Despite their refusal to operate under UNSC authority, they still utilized UNSC assets, however outdated. Nor did they possess the means to produce their own equipment.

The spartan returned his attention to the cars, noting their appearance for later review and cross examination with known producers. Closed roof, four doors, tinted windows; their silver and blue markings gave credence to some form of local constabulary organization, further proof of the unlikelihood of insurrectionist ties. No cell he had ever broken showed a desire to maintain public order. Their faction appeared more concerned with sowing chaos.

Though unable to peer inside, he noticed movement within the lead car and silently removed the MA37 from his back to sight in on the opening door. Flicking off the safety, he connected the assault rifle's scope with his HUD, a set of crosshairs superimposing over the vision of his right eye. His finger slid off the guard and lightly set on the trigger, ready to fire at the slightest hint of provocation.

He watched carefully as the driver's door popped open and a figure stepped out, clothed in a uniform representative of the vehicle they had emerged from, grey apparel tucked underneath a dark blue plate carrier. Concerned that it might offer protection from small arms fire, he raised his scope and centered it on the forehead of the suspected local official and –

nearly pulled the trigger on reflex.

It was confusion he felt at first, followed shortly after by calm disbelief, then cold skepticism as he examined the individual in his crosshairs.

Following the lead of the first officer, and unware of how close they skittered with death, the other cars opened their doors and a small group emerged. And all of them, every single one of them, were not human.

There were only two things that had stayed his hand from dropping the entire group in a burst of precision gunfire. He needed to carefully monitor his consumption of ammunition, and they shared no resemblance to the Covenant's many unusual races. They were, in fact, remarkably humanoid in appearance, so much that he would not have been able to tell the difference from a distance. They all seemed to be members of the same species. More than that, they were, unexpectedly, somewhat familiar.

The one he tracked with his rifle had much in common with a domestic cat, and had he belonged to any other military authority; he might have chuckled at the absurdity of this apparent first contact situation. Considering however his service record and induction into the spartan initiative, he was bereft entirely of any sense of levity, and was in fact quite somber in his cursory examination. The soldier had a feeling that the unremembered events on Reach had sent him far away from UNSC, or even Covenant territory.

He studied the alien party, even as they studied his crashed ship in turn, mumbling in low tones as they sifted through the wreckage. Glancing at an icon at the bottom left of his HUD and blinking twice in quick succession, activated the audio sensors in his armor and heightened their detection range, allowing him to eavesdrop upon the conversation below.

"I don't recognize the profile of the ship, Lieutenant." One of the officers informed the one he had been watching. The spartan paused in thought, surprised to learn that he was capable of understanding their language, questioning the viability of such a development. Even with the Covenant lexicon in his suit's translation matrix, he should not have been able to comprehend their speech. They spoke English, or at least one of the many human languages that still existed unto present date. Nevertheless he stowed his surprise swiftly, and instead considered the boon of not having to attempt to translate the local language. There would be time later for doubt.

"Neither do I." Confessed the one he suspected of leading this assembly, voice recognition algorithms matching it as female with an eight percent margin for failure. "But whatever it is… its military. And far ahead of anything we've got in the air. The 911 call said it came crashing down from space, like a meteor. And nothing can fly that high."

"Think it's from the Katzikstan?" Her subordinate asked. "I heard a few rumors back in my army days that they had some serious tech research going on up there."

"No… it's something else." She muttered thoughtfully as she examined the site in further detail. "Where's the pilot? Did they eject?"

"No ma'am, seat's still in there. Or at least what's left of it." Someone called out from down in the shallow crater. "No sign of a body though."

"Maybe it's a drone?" The second policeman suggested.

"Why would it need a cockpit then? Doesn't make sense from a technical standpoint, it'd just be a waste of space. No, there was a pilot, there had to be." The Lieutenant stated, confident in her hypothesis.

"What… they just got up and walked away… from this?" The feline next to her seemed incredulous.

"Lieutenant, I've got something!" A voice called out excitedly from a few meters away, the eagerness in their voice drawing in the entire group and putting an end to the conversation.

"What is it?" The female in charge of the unit asked as she pushed her way to the front of the small crowd and addressed the officer crouching in the dirt.

"It's a set of recurring tracks, leading away from the center of the crash. Kats alive! Somebody crawled out of that mess!"

Up in the trees, the spartan shifted lightly, his trigger finger tensing fractionally as he readied himself to open fire.

"No way anybody'd walk away from a crash like that, that's impossible."

"Well that's what it looks like."

A short argument of disbelief flared up between the party. As a result, Six eased off the trigger and instead decided to make good his ex-filtration while they were otherwise occupied. An engagement with no intel was something he desired to avoid. Using the chatter of loud voices to screen his movement, he dropped from the tree, his boots hardly producing a whisper as he landed on the grass. One last glance at the broken remnant of his sabre and the unusual aliens, he disappeared into the forest without a sound.

* * *

Feline's left ear twitched.

Turning away from her arguing juniors, she focused her gaze upon the tree line. Intuition born of experience had drawn her gaze that way, and she was not one to ignore her instincts. In her examination of the swaying leaves, she noticed a slight difference in the cadence of the largest oak closest to the site of the crash. Lowering her paw to the handgun holstered at her side she walked over to investigate.

As she approached she noticed flakes of fallen bark littering the dirt around the tree. Further analysis revealed that large sections of the tree's wooded hide had been scoured away, much the way when an animal sought to climb. She followed the trail with her eyes as led up to a branch twenty feet from the ground.

A trickle of unease seeped down her spine as she studied the empty branch, gathering the sense it had not been so barren moments ago. The feline turned back to the empty pilot's seat, then to the pattern of overturned dirt leading away from the scene. Hazel eyes watched with growing disquiet as the trajectory of the prints followed a direct path under her, and ended just before the oak behind her.

In a moment she had drawn her weapon and spun on her heels to face the forest, but there was nothing to place in her sights. And that's when she noticed the silence, the distinct lack of bird calls or even shuffle of wild animals in the underbrush.

She took a step away from the edge, her fur prickling all across her body as she felt the attention of unseen eyes.

"Lieutenant Feral?" The somewhat concerned call of one of her subordinates shook her from her cautious reverie.

"Yes trooper?" She asked. A heavy, but silent sigh easing through her lips as she holstered her handgun.

"So… what do we tell the Commander?"

The feline returned her gaze to the forest uncertainly.

Something told her she was about to pull a very… very late shift.

"I'll let you know when I figure it out."

* * *

 _AN: Something of a short teaser for the spiritual succession of a project of mine nearly as old as my writing career, before even I had a laptop and was stuck pumping out small updates on an outdated apple phone. This story is quite close to my heart, with a history that spans quite a few years. Like requests for a DOOM story, I have received numerous pleas to revive this series and I can say, after years of deliberation, that I intend to bring it back, hopefully in a way that will outshine its predecessor. It is my sincerest aspiration that this will prove to satisfy after the wait many of you have endured._

 _In other news, I have worked extensively on chapters for all of my recent and recurring projects. And I hope to release something for them over the course of the coming week. However, as I have picked up a second job to pay for cost of living, I can not quite guarantee if things will pan out. Yet again I will avow my unwavering resolve to keep posting, both for myself and the humble gathering of followers I've seemed to accumulate since my initial days all those years ago._

 _As always,_

 _Keep the Faith..._


	2. In a Den of Lions

In a Den of Lions

It was with great effort of will that the spartan repressed the notion of defeat, as he skulked into the night's shadow to avoid confrontation with the local species of this world. It had been bred, and often beaten into him by the Office of Naval Intelligence, that failure to maintain one's duty was utterly unacceptable. Even with the knowledge that a withdrawal in the face of unknown opposition did not necessarily equate to a defeat, and he had not retreated as a result of overwhelming resistance, he felt the bitter sting of inadequacy nonetheless

The sensation was only inflamed as he limped into the dense forestry of this alien world. It may not have been overpowering hostile forces that induced his flight. But as he shambled into the dark like a leper chased off by unreceptive townsfolk, leaving the shattered remnants of UNSC vehicular authority to be picked over by alien vultures, it was near impossible to swallow the acidic bile of his current insufficiencies.

He may have not been defeated.

But he _was_ failing.

The spartan paused next to a tree stump, taking a moment to consult his NAV software and examine the metallic shrapnel that still skewered his thigh. Unsurprisingly, the navigation systems in his Mjolnir were not operational. Considering there was no UNSC satellite or starship to slave his electronics to, he was deprived most of his armor's tactical and information gathering systems. Without such amenities, he was forced to rely on his more linear options.

The only advantages he still possessed were mostly combat aids, shields were still functional and other than the breach in his thigh plating, his Mjolnir's integrity had been otherwise undamaged. If not for the heavy armoring and shield generator built into both his suit and the sabre, he would have not been capable of walking away from that crash. Hell, if he hadn't been equipped with the prototype Mjolnir he had been field testing for ONI, he might not have survived either way.

As he flicked the lid of his TACPAD to boot up the small, portable computer, hoping to check what other systems were still functional, he wrapped his free gauntlet around the warped spear of metal lodged into his thigh, and tore it out with a grunt of irritation. Before the wound could bleed too deep, he slid a can of biofoam out of a hardcase on his waist and jammed the nozzle into the breach.

Ignoring the stabbing pain that followed, he studied the TACPAD's display with a weak flutter of relief. While he was unsurprised that it could not form a connection to the UNSC TACNET, it was at least able to scan his immediate surroundings with its built in sensors, and was already working to compile a localized mapping index.

At the moment it was barely rudimentary, but he hoped in the days to come - for he knew this was not a situation that would be resolved swiftly – it might prove useful yet. Leaving it to run its program independently, he closed the top of the device and moved away from the stump, continuing his trek through the forest in what was a maddening exercise of disorganization.

With his navigational databank unavailable, he did not even have access to the four cardinal directions, so he could no less use it to set a course for even north or south, instead he followed the survivalist training he had undertaken on Onyx. The sun may have already set, but he could yet use the moon to find his way. After all, the moon's illumination was merely a reflection of the sun's light. Recalling what Kurt-051 had taught him in the forest outside Camp Currahee, he was able to at least discover the direction of true north, and recalling from which direction the alien militia had arrived from, what was this particular planet's western vector, he had been able to extrapolate a path that might lead him to a location of significance on this world.

Where technology failed, human knowledge and intuition excelled. Or in the words of his drill instructor, _a soldier was as only as effective as the brain in his head_. With an objective, he set course with a lingering ghost of his resolve haunting his unrelenting and single-minded pace.

Out here in the woods he was ineffective, deprived of the tools and the means to properly plan and respond to his unforeseen estrangement. But if he were to find where these aliens lived or at least where they operated from, he could fall back on his training to survive long enough for retrieval, or if it came down to it, until he could find his own way back.

The last surviving member of Noble Team would not fail in his responsibilities. No matter the unpredictable peculiarity of this world and its inhabitants, no matter what obstacles would seek to impede his journey, he would return to the fight. He would go back to see the total destruction of the Covenant. He would dismantle their organization brick by brick, genocidal monster by genocidal monster, or he would die in the attempt. He would do this for a waning humanity, for the family he had lost on _Jericho VII_ , and all those who had died and would die in this senseless war.

He would not stop until long after he exacted his just recompense.

* * *

Felina entered into a scene of utter pandemonium. Enforcer headquarters was a maelstrom of raised voices and running bodies. Every desk in sight was occupied and she had seen at least half a dozen squad cars per city block. It would seem as if her Uncle had called in everyone.

The feline took a step back as a kat in a slightly ill-fitting uniform and greying fur hustled past, speaking rapidly into a radio.

It looked as if even the reservist had been activated.

"Lieutenant, the Commander's been asking for you!"

Still trying to comprehend the radical shift in the once quite building, she simply turned her head to the officer shouting across the near deafening chatter consuming the administration bureau.

"He said to tell you to head up to his office."

"Right, thanks McNeal." She nodded her gratitude and weaved through the hustle and bustle till she arrived at the elevator. She was grateful for the reprieve from the chaos as the lift's doors shut, sealing her away from the bedlam and taking her all the way to the top of the tower.

The scene she arrived to was stark in its opposing polarity.

Unlike the floors below, the level housing the upper management for the Enforcer's was deathly silent, a contrast that set Felina's fangs on edge. As usual, while the grunts waded through the disarray below, the so called _'leaders'_ rested upon their laurels atop an ivory tower.

She held great respect for her Uncle and all he had done for Megakat City, however his Lieutenant Commander and the superintendents did not hold her favor. It was a wonder how the Commander had kept the city intact considering the ludicrous hoops he had to jump through to get approval for even the smallest deployment of resources.

Luckily, depending on who you asked, his efforts were not alone.

As much as she knew he disliked them. If not for the Swat kats, Megakat City would have descended into lawless anarchy a long time ago. Personally she was not entirely supportive of their vigilantism, yet unlike the laughable efforts of the police department, bloated as it was with corpulent politicians, they at least got things done.

In her musing, the elevator doors nearly closed with her still inside, and the feline hastily slipped out with an embarrassed groan at having been so lost in thought. Thankfully no one had been in the lobby to see her blunder.

Stopping in the overly opulent antechamber she spent a quick moment dusting off her uniform and straightening any wrinkles that might have accumulated during her sojourn out into the forest.

Once confident she was presentable enough, she traveled down the comically long hallway leading to the Commander's Office. Stopping at the door, she rapped politely against the varnished wood, waiting until she heard the familiar baritone of her Uncle's voice as he called for her to enter.

Given leave to step inside, Felina did just so, taking a moment to gauge the room as she moved to stand in front of the desk.

Much like the kat himself, Commander Feral's office was fastidiously clean and meticulously kept. Every paper was sorted exactly and not a single pen was out of place. Mounting the walls squaring off his room were countless medals and certificates of achievement, all of which spoke volumes of his character. She could not help but feel pride whenever she found herself in here.

The Feral family has long carried a line of distinctive service, both in the Enforcers and in the military. Being in this room was just a visible reminder of their noble heritage.

Taking her eyes off the various accruements of office, she focused her attention on her Uncle, and saw what most others did not see, for they could hardly look such a kat in the muzzle. While his physique and bearing was as insurmountable as ever, his eyes told a different story. Tired, worn by the demands of his position, her Uncle was a kat that had taken the brunt of backstabbing politicking as well as the high stress burdens of his job.

Concealing her worry, she instead straightened her spine and offered a crisp salute.

"At ease, Lieutenant." He ordered, waiving off any more pomp and formality as he gestured for her to take a seat.

Taking the proffered chair, she primly balanced her paws on her knees and sat ready for what she suspected was a debriefing.

"I received word of your… findings, some hours before you returned. Since then I've been contacted by both General Ironclaw" the large kat sighed heavily with unexpressed irritation, "and Mayor Manks. As you can imagine they expressed entirely different concerns. But for the moment that is irrelevant. What I want to know is what exactly you found out there, in your own words."

"To start, Sir, we responded to a 911 call from a local farmer in regards to a possible plane crash. Following the directions the farmer gave we arrived at the site some sixty kilometers outside the city." She answered carefully and as directly as she could, knowing that any detail could be important or potentially vital in further investigation. "Its composition and design are as of yet, unidentified, but I do know that it is, or rather was, a highly advanced military aircraft." She paused for a moment, uncertain if she should continue. Felina had her suspicions, but she was not confident they would be appreciated. Yet all the same, he had asked for her analysis, in her own words nonetheless.

"I do not believe it originated from this country."

The Commander's expression was grim as he nodded darkly. "I had suspected as much. As did the General it seems. He has already requested that we transfer the wreckage to military purview. I am inclined to agree, this is well outside of our jurisdiction. Until the local National Guard unit arrives to acquire the debris, I've put the entire force on high alert. For all we know this could be the beginning of an attack. Did you find the pilot?"

"No. While the aircraft was undoubtedly piloted, we found no trace of the individual other than a set of tracks leading into the forest nearby. And yet… judging from the severity of the crash, I don't understand how they could have walked away from it." It baffled her to even consider how anyone could have survived what she saw. "I deemed it unadvisable to conduct a search for the pilot without authorization."

The older feline nodded sagely. "That was a sensible decision. It's better to let the military handle such an investigation."

Felina felt uneasy at the possibility presented by her developing supposition. "You think it could be the katzistani?" The United Clans' relation with their eastern neighbors had always been tenuous, ever since the last war. The thought of this sparking another was one she sorely did not want to consider.

"It's a possibility." Her Uncle admitted. The Empire of Katzikstan had been in a technological arms race with the United Clans since the end of the cold war. It very well could have been a test flight for a new air superiority fighter that went wrong. "Regardless, I want you to oversee the transport and relocation of the wreckage to Megakat R&D and safeguard it until the army detachment arrives. Hopefully after that it will no longer be our problem."

"Of course, Sir. Consider it done." She declared with confidence, and sensing that the conversation was in its final stage, she rose from her seat and prepared to leave.

However there were a few words her Uncle had still yet to say.

"Felina…"

She paused at the dropping of formality and genuine note of unfamiliar care in his voice, and turned back to him, his eyes even more haggard than before.

"Stay safe, and that's an order."

"Of course… Uncle." She nodded curtly and stepped outside into the silent hall.

* * *

The room just outside the mayor's office was a place not often utilized, visible by the accumulation of dust upon the unassuming desk isolated against the far wall. Though it had been furnished for use by his assistant, the calico kat hardly ever had the time to take advantage of her modest workplace, far too occupied with juggling her own responsibilities as well as those of the Mayor himself.

That evening was a particularly rare occurrence in her usual weekly routine. With the Mayor out playing golf with potential campaign contributors, and the city itself mostly quite after the Swat kats last intervention against the time manipulative threat posed by the Pastmaster, Callie Briggs could finally take a moment to clear the dust from her infrequently used desk and other accruements of her pseudo office space, and finally overlook the pile of papers that always seemed to accumulate in her absence.

While rather banal and unexciting considering the usual affairs she found herself unwittingly wrapped up in, she enjoyed the little chore of housekeeping just for that very reason. She would take sorting supplies and approving zoning requests over dodging bullets and escaping capture any day.

Such fur raising exploits were better left to the Swat kats, or Lieutenant Felina.

Musing on her unusual luck, the tawny feline hummed a soft tune as she finished wiping away the dust and filed her last paper for the day. Standing from her seat with a huff of pride, she looked to the pile of finished documents and the newly immaculate surface of her workspace, and allowed herself to bask in the sense of accomplishment at a concluded day's work.

Hopefully the Mayor wouldn't need here for the rest of the night, because either way, she was going home. As proud as she was in her efforts, she didn't want to spend another minute in the building if she didn't have to.

For once looking forwards to the frozen dinner that would be waiting for her back at her apartment, and the luxurious softness of her king sized bed; she hitched a ride on the nearby elevator and soon stepped out onto the streets of Megakat City.

Upon stepping outside she was accosted by a chilly gust of wind and hurriedly buttoned up her carmine coat, wondering why it was that professional businesses always insisted that their female workforce wear such short skirts.

Or rather she tried not to as she waited for a cab to pass by.

While she stood there, paw raised to hail a taxi; she took the time to drink in the sights and sounds of Megakat City's nightlife.

Like most big cities, no matter the time of day, there was usually a fairly large pedestrian presence traveling to and fro along the sidewalks, those who operated the night shifts at the local power plants or the occasional night owl out to visit any one of the many establishments that still catered to their clientele at such hours.

No matter how many times she left the office, she was always surprised with the citizens of the city. No matter what nefarious scheme befell the populace, they had always endured, stoic in their desire to maintain their lives, despite the inexplicable adversities they had to endure, more so than any other city in the country.

With the likes of Dr. Viper and Dark Kat, one might wonder why the military had not stepped in to deal with such threats. It was a solution the common citizen had wished answered on a daily basis. For the Mayor's Aide, she already knew why. And it was not exactly a pleasant revelation.

There were a lot of politics involved in the upper echelons of city management, even more than most kats realized. Notwithstanding his seemingly flagrant abuse of his position, Mayor Manks held near total power over Megakat City. The Enforcers, and even the military, needed his authorization if they wanted to perform any large scale operations within the limits of the municipality.

And she knew him well enough to know that he would not allow anything of the like so long as he was in power. He was afraid how such maneuverings would affect his popularity, which was already a flagging concern for the average voter.

She just hoped that someday, someone else might step into the position, someone who would not be afraid to make the hard decisions. But until then, she did her best from the inside to mitigate what damages she could, a rather thankless job.

But someone had to do it.

Thinking about the present was disheartening, and she felt her mood decline as she watched a cab pull to the side right in front of her. She could only hope that the future would be brighter.

Callie sighed as she opened the back door and settled herself in for the long commute home.

* * *

In the end his objective had not been hard to find. He could see the light pollution of the sprawling city long before it came into sight. He would admit, to a somewhat small degree, that he was impressed by the expansive urban metropolis that seemed to range from the nearby shore and across an immense oceanic body of water, the two halves of the great city conjoined by a solitary bridge secured by a lattice work of suspension cables and sturdy concrete foundations.

It reminded him, in a poorly imitated and crude fashion, of the capital city on Reach, though by now he concluded that New Alexandria would cut a far worse picture, slagged as it had been by the Covenant's orbital bombardment. If he were to develop a rudimentary understanding of the technological gap between humanity and this new species, he would be willing to wager that they had yet to develop beyond the use of fossil fuels, which he could then further conclude that they would in all likelihood possess a primitive space program, if any at all.

If he was right in judging their society on face value, then his chances of leaving this world had plunged even further. Nevertheless, he would worry about that when he could afford to. Instead he tacked off the first objective on his list.

Now having discovered at least one of their settlements, he could shift into the next phase, active reconnaissance. Considering the disparities between humanity and these feline-like aliens, he would have to adapt the standard procedure usually used for infiltrating insurrectionist held worlds.

Though he would have preferred not to, if they had been human he could have at least removed his Mjolnir to subvert the populace. But seeing as he was not covered in fur, nor possessed a tail, he would need to be more careful in his maneuverings, as most options were beyond his means.

Thankfully he could still somewhat follow protocol. He would first need to scout the level of advancement for this civilization, discern the extent of their technological development. Once confident in the understanding of their capabilities, he would have to gauge the effective strength of their military. If it was within his abilities to handle, then he could focus on acquiring the means of contacting the UNSC.

Yet before he could do even this, he needed access to their global positioning satellites. That is if they even possessed such technology. However he was fairly confident at their current state of development they would at the least have established some sort of orbital array. But that was not his biggest concern. Without an A.I to remotely connect to their network, he would have to not only discover where the actual link was held, but personally connect his TACPAD to their servers.

He was confident that the codebreaking algorithms downloaded into the device would be powerful enough to pierce whatever encryption safeguarded their systems. The hard part would be finding the network node and getting close enough to access it.

Shifting slightly from his prone position atop the cliff face overlooking his side of the bay, the spartan activated the VISR software loaded into his HUD. While neutered of most its capabilities in its current state disconnected from a broad-band network, it at least offered low-light vision and a telescopic magnification that he could use to gather intelligence from his current location.

His vision, enhanced beyond his already biologically augmented retinas, could peer into the extensive city skyline, amidst the jungle of metal spires and the stout, dark red earthenware buildings that dominated the majority of civil construction. He searched specifically for any kind of broadcasting equipment. His best chance would probably be a news network. While military equipment would have been preferable, and undoubtedly superior, if he wished to retain his anonymity it would be best to distance himself from their armed forces for as long as he could maintain his secrecy.

The spartan had no desire to involve civil authority.

Several minutes of thorough observation passed before he found a possible location. Deep in the heart of the city, across the waterfront, was a fairly large structure with a white concrete front. While outwardly it was nearly indistinguishable from its neighbors, the fairly large radio antenna atop its roof singled it out as his target building.

Noble Six unenthusiastically surveyed the vast separation between him and his objective; where the uninitiated would see several kilometers of busy streets and transparent windows, the spartan recognized unfavorable terrain with limited concealment and possible concealment for snipers.

The special operations operative glanced to his tarnished armor. Though once the titanium plating had been treated with a coating of non-reflective silver, the crash and ensuing flames had burned away the solid coloration, blackening his Mjolnir with a charcoal-like residue. It would no doubt take considerable effort to remove the discoloration. And yet, in its present condition, it might prove more suitable to the environment.

Although its new shade would work well in shadows, he found the prospect of infiltrating the city at ground level to be near impossible, with greater risk than reward. He deliberated the merits of finding a sewer entrance, but without a mapping system he was more likely to become lost in the labyrinthine catacombs that no doubt crawled through the megalopolis's underbelly.

With his physical enhancements, further augmented by his armor, it was a more conceivable concept to traverse the city's rooftops, and he ran a lower risk of detection if he inserted from a higher elevation. He nodded to himself as he came to a decision. Logic dictated progression from above. It was perhaps not the best plan he had formulated, but in recent context, it would have to suffice.

Terrible plan aside, it was good to be orientated upon a goal once more, the direction, and the purpose it offered allowed him to, even temporarily, forget his unfavorable circumstances. First gather information, then figure out a means of getting back.

As long as he focused on the mission, he could still believe in his duties.

Rising up from his cloaked positon within the underbrush, he found a relatively even slope and slid down the grade, his armor cushioning him from hard rock underneath. The time it took for him to reach the bottom, he kept his shields inactivate. The spartan was unwilling to broadcast his position, something that the envelope of protective energy would do in his controlled slide.

He hit the ground at a sprint, shield systems flaring online as he skirted the edge of the small dockyard sitting below the cliff. Placing himself between the port and the surf to his right, the human supersoldier circumnavigated the breadth of the city as he made his way to the bridge.

It would be faster for him to cross using their infrastructure then it would have been if he decided to cut straight across the ocean. He did not know how deep the waters were or what manner of marine life swam through the alien sea's depths.

He already had his fill of oceanic predators back on Mamore. With the Sabres still in experimental testing, his had suffered a critical engine failure, forcing him to bail out over the planet's southern ocean. The ensuing seventy three minutes before extraction via a specialized diving team, would never be forgotten by him for as long as he lived.

He had one consideration that summed up the entirety of that unpleasant experience.

Mjolnir did not float.

Since then, the spartan was not afraid of deep water, but he was averse to it.

Six looked down at the murky channel a hundred meters below him as he traveled across the maintenance catwalks, wondering what new horrors might await down in the dark waters. He was not, however, curious enough to investigate.

Shaking his head at entertaining such distractions, he returned his thoughts to the task at hand, praying for expediency in the coming mission and days to follow.

* * *

In the end reaching the rooftops of the buildings in the city had been easier than he suspected it to be, a simple matter of climbing the first fire escape he came across. From there it had been even easier to maintain his concealment as he bounded from rooftop to rooftop. The denizens of this world were much like humans, in the respect that they did not pay attention to the world above them. And in his brief glimpses of the environment below as he cut across buildings, the soldier noted that the everyday bustle of their community was much like a UNSC colony, their infrastructure even mirroring human construction in a way that was to a certain degree reassuring to a spartan so out of his element.

Recalling what he had learned about public infrastructure during his many lessons in the program, it was fairly simple for him to navigate the outwardly complex maze of civil engineering.

He made good time in his trek over the city's spires, little less than an hour passed before he arrived at the structure overlooking his objective. Standing atop the roof's edge, he directed his attention down to the news building several stories below him. If their society operated under any sort of municipal planning that emulated human architecture and design, which through his studies appeared conclusive, then the server room housing their communications equipment would be somewhere near the top floor. Therefor it was only logical that he infiltrate the development from a point that would place him closest to his mark.

The spartan spent several moments calculating the velocity he would need to achieve if he was going to clear the gap between buildings and land safely on his target. There was approximately a thirty-five meter clearance separating the two buildings. Taking into account the structure under him was twelve stories taller; he would need to produce sufficient speed to land at his goal. It would was going to be close, even with assistance. His armor contained several maneuvering jets for use in zero-g environments. However, in this instance, they would do little more than generate enough lift to counteract the substantial weight of his Mjolnir.

Nevertheless there was truly only one way to find out.

Jogging to the end of the opposite side of the rooftop, he lowered into a crouch and primed his muscles. The following jump would be an all or nothing affair, and the soldier prepared himself in that moment for the worst case scenario, though he would prefer not to miss.

Noble Six launched forwards, reaching, nearly instantaneously, acceleration in excess of sixty kilometers per hour. Maintaining his speed, he crossed the roof in moments and coiled the muscles in his leg before unwinding them in a released burst of controlled propulsion that sent his armored form careening high into the air.

Before the half tonnage of his Mjolnir could bring him careening into the street hundreds of meters below, the jets built into his suit activated. Armored segments around his calf and upper back receded to reveal four conical nozzles that flared into existence with the harsh rumble of blistering exhaust fumes.

The spartan spent ten tense seconds hurtling weightless through the sky, seconds that seemed like an eternity to a mind enhanced to a point that it could run rapid combat computations at such speed as to alter the perception of time

And then, before the eleventh second could pass, his boots impacted the concrete of the adjacent rooftop. Rolling forwards to negate the inertia of his arrival, he skidded to a stop just before he collided with the far wall.

Taking only a moment to adjust to his new environment, the spartan rose from his crouch and set his eyes upon the roof access door across from him. He noticed the box-like, rectangular outline of the camera recessed into the upper left corner, and moved swiftly to disable it. Five seconds passed before it was neutralized as he uploaded a command from his TACPAD for it to recycle the last five minutes of footage on an endless loop.

Simultaneously, he was relieved to learn that the infiltration software on his device still functioned against unknown systems. Designed as it was to counter the technologically superior Covenant, it should not have really come as to much of a surprise it could countermand the inferior equipment.

Secure in the knowledge that he had not yet been detected; the spartan examined the door, scanning for any alarm systems that might be triggered by his forced entry, of which the scans soon indicated the absence of such deterrents. Apparently the owner of this building was unconcerned with theft, seeing as the only means of surveillance or detection had been the camera he hijacked.

Now acting without the threat of immediate discovery, he could address the situation without resorting to unnecessary force. While it would have been easiest to simply rip the handle off the door, the less he did to reveal his presence the better off he would be, which was why, with the gritting of his teeth, he methodically removed the hinges and set the door aside with the intention of reinstalling it on his way out.

A set of stairs now lay in front of him, and down the steps, his objective.

Readying himself for the delicate task ahead, the spartan wondered distantly at the absurd nature of his current situation. He had been trained to destroy entire terrorist organizations, equipped with weapons and technology that allowed him to match the peerless might of a massive alien empire. Yet here he was, sneaking into a news network to download the equivalent of a civilization's almanac.

Since his arrival he had fallen far from his intended purpose.

The spartan released a muted sigh directed at the laughable decline of his profession as he removed the handgun on his thigh and tightened his gauntlet about the grip. The faster he accomplished his objectives, the sooner he would return to the UNSC and slake his presently incapable desires for vengeance.

It would be best if did not have to resort to needless death. He had no real reason to kill any of these strange aliens, and doing such would only make their desire to reciprocate that much stronger should they ever be made aware of his presence. All the same, he considered his life far more valuable than any one of theirs. And it one or two deaths would make his task easier….

Hopefully it would not come to that.

* * *

Holding true to his assumption that infiltrating the building would prove unchallenging, Noble Six ghosted through halls and down stairwells with soundless poise, bypassing the occasional feline tapping away at a keyboard in one of the myriad of walled cubicles. Night, as always, proved to be the optimum time to maintain stealth. Of the seven floors he had already cleared, he only need circumvent a handful of late night workers. His motion tracker was quite useful in that field, keeping his movements invisible and his presence unnoticed.

The system of cameras proved to be the most trouble, which was to say very little, the spartan leaving a trail of looped surveillance videos that would be undetected and untraceable until long after they had returned to normal operation.

"Were you there when Ann caught footage of those crazy slime monsters?"

Hearing voices, Six paused outside the breakroom, a mellow glow illuminating the darkened hallway he had been gliding through.

"Was I there? Was I there? Damnit Mitch, I was her freaking camera kat! Of course I was there. I almost got eaten!"

"Dang… really?"

The spartan discerned movement within the small employee kitchen, his motion tracker identifying two contacts approaching from ahead and he swiftly retreated into one of the empty cubicles he had passed previously. Not a second later two felines, both males, vacated the room and headed off down the hall he had entered from, their discussion fading into silence as they disappeared around the bend.

Six waited a minute longer for anyone else to follow before he continued on with the mission. Barring the previous incident, he didn't encounter any other roving personnel, locating his objective a further three floors down, behind a door quite evidently labeled _Server Access_.

The keycard locked barrier proved to only be a negligible obstruction, the computer on his forearm proving far stronger than whatever encryption the security measure utilized. He stopped however, before opening the door, his tracker alerting him to the presence of a single individual inside, eight meters from the doorway.

The soldier looked to his pistol, and reluctantly stowed it away, retrieving instead the knife sheathed to his left shoulderplate. If he was pressed into confrontation, he did not want to leave any ballistics for local police to retrieve and analyze. He would have liked even less to have to pry a bullet out of a feline's skull or a concrete wall.

The blade, while messier, would suit his need to remain anonymous in the event he needed more than his strength to secure success. The possibility that this alien could overpower him physically was negligible, but he had not lived this long by taking unnecessary risks.

He did feel, to some infinitesimal degree, guilt at the ease with which he discounted the life of an alien, a person, unaligned with the Covenant or insurrection. It was no within his ethics to harm non-combatants, or at least it had been before ONI shifted him into wetwork. Since then his hands had been bloodied by political revolutionists and public ' _dissidents'_. He promised himself, that if it came down to it, if it was a choice to preserve his secrecy, and end a life… he would make it quick, if not painless.

He opened the door wide enough to slip inside, closing it soundlessly behind him.

The interior of the server room, much like any he had seen before if somewhat primitive, was a series of massive machines set in identical rows, equidistant between the other. At his immediate entry he saw no sign of the alien currently inhabiting the room with him. Realizing that it must be inside one of the aisle and was not an immediate threat to his discovery, he slightly loosened his grip on the knife. The spartan skirted silently across lanes of immense computer equipment, until he had halved the distance between himself and the other occupant.

Ready to move in if he would be spotted, the spartan peered around the corner of the adjacent server node, noticing the turned back of a somewhat lanky feline in blue overalls and a dark grey dress shirt. Sitting beside him on the floor was a small laptop, a set of color coded wires leading from the tiny machine and into the closest computing tower.

Somewhat relieved, the augmented supersoldier sheathed his knife and stepped out from behind his concealment. His ensuing neutralization of the technician was relatively effortless. Wrapping his arm around the feline's neck, he swiftly rendered him unconscious with a subtle increase in pressure.

However it would not last long, maybe two minutes before he returned to awareness. Arranging the alien so that it would appear as if he had fallen asleep while working, the spartan hooked his TACPAD into the workstation and activated the data tunneler. Thirty seconds later and he was already outside the room and on his way back to the roof.

With only the need to retrace his steps, he was out on the rooftop, waiting for his tunneling software to finish its work long before the technician would wake up with a slight headache, thinking he had taken a nap during his shift.

If Six were to take into consideration his previous usage of the intelligence gathering datamine, it would probably take an hour for the software to infect their computer systems and create a backdoor for his TACPAD to access their online network. Thirty minutes after that and he should have admission to the city's blueprints, historical articles, any potential GPS satellites, and whatever material he could gather from their internet.

He intended to use that interim productively.

Now that he would eventually obtain the facts he needed, it was time to find a location where he could analyze what would undoubtedly be thousands of pages of relevant information, without worrying about discovery or placing himself too far away from the city and possible opportunities. Even if he were to disregard ninety percent of the data, it would still take days to collect even a remedial conceptualization of an entirely foreign society.

He was not anticipating the undeniably enormous task lying ahead of him. Usually his missions were already vetted by ONI, with a short, concise brief on his objective and mission parameters. Trapped on this world without outside assistance, he was denied this luxury and was compelled to act independently and amass his own data.

This was not beyond the scope of his abilities, he had trained for similar situations where he was beyond the guidance of his handler or any other form of leadership. His only frustration lay in the fact that doing his own intelligence gathering would severely hinder his movements and limit his capabilities to launch future missions.

Dwelling on the impending adversities that stood between him and his overall objective, the spartan set out to search for a suitable location from which to conduct his strategic planning. There would be much to do if he was going to find a way back to the UNSC. And he would need a hideout from which to stage his operations.

The coming days would be a true test of his abilities, deprived as he was of even basic mission support utilities and isolated from friendly assets. This forced him to consider the very real probability of failure. If he were to survive he would have to avoid open conflict with the native inhabitants. Despite their comparatively unsophisticated technology, he could not hope to defeat the collective militaries of an entire planet unaided.

The spartan also realized that he could not allow them to remain in possession of the wreckage from his sabre. Destroyed as it had been, it was still prototype UNSC hardware that he could not allow an unaffiliated association to study and potentially reverse engineer.

He had his next task.

Once he was well established and had some bare bones concept of what mess he had landed in, he would have to discover where they moved the debris, and initiate procedures for asset denial. Gut instinct from his experiences told him it would not be as easy as it sounded, and considering how difficult it already appeared, he was not entirely encouraged by the uncertainty of his future.

Nevertheless he would not fail in his duties.

Not again.

* * *

 _AN: Considering how well received this was, I felt your enthusiasm should be rewarded with an early posting. I am heartened to see that so many others are as excited about the return of this story as I am. It was after all one of my first attempts at writing literature, back when I was a somewhat younger individual. Hopefully my written skill has improved since then. I am also using this chapter to give an update on some of my other stories I've been working on lately, at least to those who bother to read these little anecdotes here at the bottom._

 _Legacy - 5,095 Words_

 _Until it is Done - 4,175 Words_

 _As you might hazard to guess, both chapters are somewhat near completion. I can't say for sure when they'll be up to snuff for release, but I could safely guess it to be sometime in the next week or so. There are of course other stories I have been dabbling with in-between updates, but they aren't at any significant progress worth notifying._

 _I hope this note finds you all in good health and high spirits, and I hope as well that you have enjoyed this chapter and forgive any possible spelling inconsistencies. Despite pre-reading, some things always manage to slip the net._

 _Till next time._

 _Keep the faith..._


	3. Covert Ops

Covert Ops

It was a strange and yet paradoxically familiar world that the spartan found himself temporarily residing upon. Noble Six was altogether unsure what to make of this place. Nothing he learned in the program had ever prepared himself for this particular situation. His previous comparison to a UNSC colony was startlingly apt from what he had come to learn of this world and its inhabitants. Yet he had never before in his experience encountered something so acquainted and yet radically divergent.

Three days had passed since he retrieved the proverbial keys to the alien online net, and he had spent forty-eight of those seventy-two hours attempting to discern any form of advantage, or oftentimes even logic, in the inexplicable absurdity of this foreign network. The deserted and rather spacious warehouse he had provisionally requisitioned for himself proved to be a suitable, albeit impermanent living arrangement while he attempted to strategize for his next operation. It would not have been his first choice for a safehouse, but it was by a fair margin, the most viable for his current needs.

He had observed the location for an entire day before he was confident enough to believe it was abandoned, or at least would remain so in the temporary interim he planned to use it. There were a few unusual characters that wandered about the alleys at night, but as long as he was careful, they wouldn't be a problem. The interior of the waterfront building was barren, a yawning stretch of naked concrete with a framework of catwalks for the second story. But the manager's office had boarded windows and a sturdy iron door. It was not perfect, but preferable to the other locations he had scouted.

It provided shelter and if he was to be discovered he could easily outmaneuver any pursers in the maze of warehouses lining the docks. And as he lacked both reliable transportation and a means to move through the area unimpeded, it was the best he could do with such limitations.

Suspect living arrangement aside, having a somewhat secure site had at least allowed him to focus on discerning the information he had been gathering for the past few days. The act of perusing countless hours of online material, and the general lack of physical activity had a negative impact on both his patience and his sanity. He had not been designed for prolonged reconnaissance and Intel gathering. Even in his operations against the insurrection he could count on the fact he would need to fight eventually. This, however, was different. He could not afford to treat these inhabitants like the rebels, could not submit to a combative mentality. They were not an opposing force, but simply an obstacle impeding his efforts, obstacles he could not crush for concerns of the long term implications. Frustrated as he was, he could not fight them, not openly and not in the way he had been taught. The spartan had trained extensively for a more aggressive theatre of war, and did not respond entirely well to such protracted lengths of inaction.

Even in that moment he could feel his restlessness manifesting in the unconscious twitching of his muscles as they flexed and relaxed, his body desperate to do anything other than what he had been doing for the past several days. The nervous twitch was made worse since he could not even travel all that far from his hideout for fear of discovery. As impermanent as his current position may have been, he desired even less to have to relocate. Unsurprisingly there were not all that many places in a highly active city for someone like him to lay low.

Nevertheless, such issues were personal and posed no real detriment to his operation. And on a lighter note, for his efforts he had learned a great deal about this world and its unusual inhabitants.

The civilization of cats… or rather kats, as they apparently called themselves for whatever inane reason, was composed of a society that greatly reflected a unified humanity during the early 22nd century. Though they used fossil fuels and relied on strange combination of comparatively archaic and in some cases highly advanced technology, they were well on their way to following in mankind's footsteps. He learned, much to his disappointment, that while they actually did possess a space program, it would be years before they could do more than visit their orbiting satellite.

He would need to find his own way off this rock.

The settlement he had chanced upon went by the name of Megakat City, supposedly the most densely populated and advanced municipality in the United Clans, the nation within which boundary he made temporary residency. And that was just the tip of the iceberg of knowledge he needed to gain. He memorized the overflow of unimportant facts pertaining to national borders and geopolitical environments, more to form a comprehensive understanding of the difficulties he would face then of any personal interest. Should he ever escape this world and rejoin the UNSC, he was confident his findings would excite the scientific community for years to come.

There was, unsurprisingly, a near incalculable amount of data to metabolize, and even forty-eight hours of uninterrupted examination only provided him with a limited grasp of this world.

He had not even touched upon their culture yet.

While of no particular interest to himself, anything he could glean about the inhabitants of this world was information he could use to keep himself alive. It would only take a second of incomprehension, a brief moment ignorance in the face of opposition, to get himself killed. The entire world was against him. He could not garner support from the populace nor establish contacts within their society.

He was, ironically enough, completely and utterly alien.

Noble Six sighed quietly, the exhalation more instinctive than bearing any intent as he set his helmet down on the rusted desk ornamenting the warehouse office. The spartan reached into a pouch on his breastplate and retrieved an emergency protein bar, eyeing the plastic wrapped block of dense calories with mild disdain. Although UNSC field rations were not exactly delicacies unto themselves, an MRE was preferable in taste to that of supplies reserved for Special Forces units out in the field.

It would sate his hunger, and ensure that he suffered no nutritional deficiencies, but that did not mean it didn't possess the flavor and perception of a brick of chalk that uncertainly tasted of meat and bread. At least that's what he hoped he tasted. It had been years since he last had anything that could be considered edible to a civilian.

Stomaching his distaste, the spartan choked down his first meal since his disastrous awakening as he drew up plans for his next operation, the TACPAD on his bracer filling the room with a muted blue glow as he studied the research complex housing his objective.

Megakat R&D, or Puma-Dyne as it was known to those with high enough clearance, was a facility and organization that was currently in possession of human tech. He had researched the firm carefully, hacking its servers to retrieve information not accessible to the public, genetic manipulation, ablative and reactive armors, infantry portable energy weaponry, it was a black ops military facility in all but name. The Sabre could not be allowed to remain in the hands of the scientists of this world. They were not his adversaries in the way of the Covenant and he had no governmental directive to consider them hostile, but he could not allow UNSC technology to be compromised.

They were not his enemy as of this moment, but it was a potentiality.

The spartan, brushing flakes of protein bar off the warehouse desk, considered all possibilities for success. He would need a viable insertion point and a means of swift exfiltration. This was a high profile organization, even as it was a cover-up for more clandestine research its front was a well-known institute for science. He could not afford to draw unnecessary attention to his presence here in the city, nor could he allow the local constabulary and military factions to mobilize against him.

He looked to his rifle.

Skimming the release button, he caught the magazine as it fell from the stock of the MA37. In the same motion, Noble Six flicked his thumb over the first brass cartridge loaded into the mag and the bullet dropped into his waiting gauntlet.

He studied the 7.62x51mm round skeptically.

By his calculations he had 480 rounds, fifteen magazines before he was out of ammunition for the MA37, and 48 shells, or six full tubes for his shotgun. It was a standard combat load, given to soldiers before they left for the field. However that was with the implicit understanding that resupply was available.

He had no such luck.

From what he understood through investigation, the inhabitants of this world used scalable energy weapons, primitive in form when compared to the Covenant and even some of the cutting-edge tech under research in the UNSC before his relocation. Ballistic weaponry was uncommon on this world.

As such it was an unlikelihood that he would attain any ammunition for his weapons for the duration of his unwanted occupation. He doubted he would find anything sufficient in the future to bolster his arsenal. This would mean that prolonged engagements would be inadvisable as he did not have the supplies to maintain any further escalation. Discretion was the word of the day, and yet as much as he disliked such missions, he had not been on ONI black operations without reason.

He had experience in this particular theater of war.

The spartan would just have to make do with what he had.

He always did.

* * *

"This… this is utterly incredible! The propellant for the thrusters utilizes a mix of chemicals as of yet undiscovered by modern science! And the hull? Ablative heat shielding inlaid with some new kind of metal alloy. That is not even taking into account of its electrical systems. To think of the…."

Felina sighed, brushing a paw across her muzzle in irritation as the scientist went on and on about the _wondrous_ mysteries of what she considered to be nothing but an ugly heap of scrap metal. It was far too high above her pay grade for her to care. It'd probably be better for her career, and health, if she let it alone.

Some people, however, could not.

Content enough to let the researcher talk himself to death, she turned her gaze to the long stretch of open space inside the hanger. There were several kats in lab coats shuffling about, calibrating recently transferred lab equipment and chattering animatedly with each other as they consulted a plethora of whiteboards and more advanced holo tables that had been wheeled and installed respectively, for the new project.

She might have been impressed with the haste they were exhibiting if she did not already know it was because they would not have the debris for long. It'd only been four days since the crash, and after a full day of combing the site for any lingering fragments from the craft, the wreckage had been moved to Megakat R&D. Since then the scientists here have been practically frothing at the mouth with all the theories and ideas about its origin.

"Dr. Maine, please." She finally relented with a tired sigh after several minutes of his babbling, realizing that he probably would not stop unless prompted to. "Just tell me why it is you saw the need to interrupt my nap." She had been in the middle of a rather pleasant dream when the agitated feline had burst into the break room spouting some incomprehensible nonsense.

That, unsurprisingly, made for a somewhat irritable Felina Feral.

The kat, seeming to realize for the first time that he had been rambling, took a step back and dusted his coat with an embarrassed cough. "Ah yes, of course. Forgive my excitement, Lieutenant, but it is just so _extraordinary._ If my theory is correct there is no telling what impact it may have upon the scientific community, or all kat kind."

"And what theory, pray tell, is that, Doctor?" Feline inquired as she sat herself down on a nearby rolling chair.

She then watched as he dragged a whiteboard before her, its surface scrawled with a multicolored spectrum of various colors and equations beyond her understating.

"Well as you know," He began with audible exhilaration that only seemed to grow the more and more he spoke and gesticulated wildly at his writings. "This was recovered in its current state some days ago, and since then we've been able to postulate initial impact values utilizing the crater at the crash site and the thermic damage to the nearby flora. But that is just _one_ part of an even more fascinating surprise."

The kat brandished a pointer, leveling it at a periodic table of elements similar to what she learned in late primary school. The tip of the pointer itself was leveled against a specific element at the bottom of the list that was circled heavily in red marker… a new element.

" _This_ ," Dr. Maine enunciated with a gleam of anticipation flickering in his eyes, "is an element with twenty-two protons. I do not know if you are aware of this, Miss Feral, but kat kind has yet to discover or create such an element."

She paused, the synapses in her brain firing slowly, as she tried to understand what it was he was trying to tell her, or rather it was her mind attempting to process his intent.

Perhaps seeing the dawning realization on her muzzle, the Doctor nodded gravely. "The materials of this craft are composed of a metallic element beyond the current scope of kat metallurgy, and the technology housed inside utilizes a suite of microchip processors and electrical engineering that is, quite frankly put, impossible for our society to fabricate. What I am saying, Miss Feral, is that we, as a species, _did not_ create this aircraft. We can hardly _understand_ it. It is at least several hundred years more advanced than modern machinery can allow. And the calculations from the impact site were finished only minutes before you were awakened, an impact with an exoatmospheric vector, as in outside the scope of our atmosphere."

He sighed heavily, the sound a fusion of somber excitement. "This is not an aircraft, Miss Feral. This is a _spaceship_."

Felina's chair rolled backwards as she stood up slowly. She tried to truly comprehend the significance of this revelation, but could hardly fathom what it was she had been told. In the end, she supposed it could summarized in simple, easily understood words.

"Oh… oh shit."

"Oh shit indeed, Miss Feral. We are possibly facing a first contact scenario."

"The pilot…" She mumbled quietly, fearfully. "We never found the pilot. We had assumed they were maybe from Katzikstan, that maybe they had escaped or blended in to wait for retrieval. But…"

"Correct." Dr. Maine nodded thoughtfully. "We took measurements inside the cockpit the moment this became a possibility. All information gathered indicated a bipedal being, though with a significantly larger stature then kat standard. There was also some blood found on the seat, but with most of it burned or charred into the upholstery, we won't be able to learn anything from it any time soon. But honestly at the moment I am not certain that matters. First Contact was made… and we missed it."

Felina did not know what it was she should feel in that moment. But she did know at least what it was she had to do.

"A moment please, Doctor. There are a few calls I have to make."

* * *

Six closed the guard shack's door, leaving its occupant unconscious and relatively unharmed in her chair. In that moment, as he stepped off the facility's main road and faded into the clutter of buildings nestled inside the perimeter, the spartan lamented the absence of non-lethal ammunition. It was not usually his modus operandi, but he could have used a magazine of tranquilizer rounds, a handful of flashbangs or even a few smoke grenades.

Unfortunately the war with the Covenant had entirely phased out nonlethal options. No one wanted to enter a combat situation with those monsters with anything that could not kill on demand.

This of course made his work difficult.

Noble Six was perfectly capable of killing of course. He could easily tear his way through this entire compound, and he probably wouldn't even need his guns, but that would only mark him as a threat, as well as reveal his presence planetwide. He doubted he would have time to doctor the footage from the security system's main frame before a militarized force arrived to retaliate, and he was not eager for the opportunity to test his metal against a world's worth of pissed off aliens.

He'd already had his fill of that.

So when he came across patrols or wandering personnel, he stayed inside the shadows and altered any cameras he came across. This turned his progress into a crawl, and what might have taken him minutes if he had gone loud, instead took hours as he ducked through empty buildings and skulked through maintenance passages and drain pipes.

The map of the facility he possessed was a recent upload into the local data center onsite, and he was grateful for once that he actually had the correct Intel. The irony was not lost on him that it was probably only accurate because he had gathered it himself. He could not think of a time in human history where military analysts had ever consistently delivered correct intelligence for operations.

But that was a problem that was neither here not there, and the spartan stowed the concern away as he crouched behind a stack of wooden pallets at the southernmost end of the research compound.

The nav marker he set on the exterior hangar complex informed him that he was only a few hundred meters from his objective. There were a few bays on site, supposedly to house and maintain whatever experimental vehicles and aircraft that were currently under development. It was only logical to postulate that the wreckage of his sabre would be contained in a similar location.

Noble Six brushed a hand across his Mjolnir's breastplate, a tertiary check to ensure that he still had the cans of C-7 stacked inside one of the numerous hardcases ornamenting his powered armor. He'd in all probability only need one to ensure the complete demolition of the objective, but he hadn't made it this far into his career by taking unnecessary risks.

Satisfied that there would be no impediments to his success, the spartan rounded the final corner separating him from his target.

The airfield structure before him was fabricated from mass produced sheet metal, thin and easily manipulated by someone of his strength. It would not take even seven seconds for him to open a tear large enough to fit his significant bulk. Six, taking a moment to prepare himself for the rapid shift from silent to loud operation, placed a palm against the steel wall.

Sensor capillaries weaved into his nanocomposite bodysuit activated, sending a low energy pulse transfusing through the alloy and into the open space behind it, The wave of sound rebounded off any object located inside the structure before the data processing unit in his HUD software then extrapolated information in real time, a useful, if exceptional process built into his Mjolnir. This was just one of the many newer functions available to him as a result of his ONI connections. Tech like this would not have been available to the rest of the program for at least another two years, and was more a sign of the investments poured into him as a prototype weapon more than a spartan. His armor was a testbed for experimental technology, and not always of the kind that worked.

Thankfully any detrimental upgrades had been removed before he was transferred to Reach for anti-insurrectionist operations. What was left remained useful, and in this moment, most welcomed.

 _Fifteen anomalous contacts, open area, minimal cover._ It was not exactly a breach situation he was fond of. Fifteen possible alien individuals in a vast, largely exposed interior. This would not have been an issue if he wasn't trying to reduce or entirely mitigate collateral damage. There was no possibility that he could escape exposure unless he terminated anything that he made visual contact with.

As he was not currently in the habit of senseless murder, at least when not on ONI's clock, he struggled to make his decision. He could not allow UNSC technology to fall into unaffiliated hands, and yet he was resistant to the notion of spilling innocent blood to achieve his ends. Back in ONI this would not have been an issue, indeed his orders would have been to kill anyone associated with comprised assets.

And while he knew what ONI's orders would be.

He did not, in the depth of his heart, want to follow them.

Noble Six inhaled loudly, his fingers clenching against the hangar wall, the metal warping easily around his touch.

The choice, in the end, was not an easy one to make.

The spartan released his pent up breath, his helmet filling temporarily with the heavy sound of his fatalistic exhalation. He let go of the wall, his hand moving to chamber a round into his rifle as he raised it upwards, shoulders squared and his lips peeled back as his teeth gritted in a grim rictus.

His duty was more important than any emotional sentiment.

Six crouched low, the force multiplying circuits in his armor activating as his muscles tensed with impending intent.

An explosion knocked him off his feet.

The supersoldier flew backwards as a percussive wave of sound and heat violently slammed into his unbalanced posture. His armored form impacted the wall of the building several feet behind him, half a ton of advanced technology and killing power punching a hole clean through a meter of iron rebar and concrete.

A moment passed as he regained his senses. The spartan leaped to his feet, brandishing his rifle while the haze of powdered building and smoke started to dissipate. He examined his surroundings, the force of the blast having launched him into what looked like a research center. Scattered desks and chairs lay strewn around him amidst a sea of dispersed papers and office supplies, and he could see several bodies prostrated across the floor.

He could see no significant blood loss or visible signs of outside fracturing of bone and deduced that they had simply been knocked out or temporarily incapacitated from the explosion. From the force of the detonation and its apparent size, he could only reason that it had been caused by a high yield device or a severe industrial accident.

Judging from the loud voices and sharp fizzle of weaponry emanating from the hole in the building, he could only infer that it was the former and not the latter.

An outside militarized force… that was something he had not calculated as a possible interference to his plans. He did not know who the attackers might be, he hardly knew anything about this world. But he could not take a risk and disregard the possibility that they were here for his sabre. Destroying any and all traces of human technology, if not before, was now of vital importance and could not be delayed no matter what must be done to secure his objective.

The spartan emerged from the building behind him into a scene of utter chaos.

The hangar was not the only building affected, and he could see the glow of rampant fires in the immediate distance as flames consumed several large structures inside the compound. The doors to the storage unit storing the remains of his ship had been shorn off in a way similar to a breaching charge, and he could hear the sounds of combat coming from inside.

Noble Six dove into cover when he heard footsteps about to round the corner, finding shelter behind an air conditioning unit covered in bits of rubble. The spartan waited, and grew surprised at the small squad of creatures that came into view.

Entirely un-feline in appearance, these aliens were large and vaguely similar to what he had grown used to combating in his career. Covered in a dense scaly hide and towering nearly as large as an ODST in full combat dress, these things were more akin to crocodilians than any alien species he as of yet encountered.

They were decently equipped, wearing modern armor and weaponry, and spoke amongst each other in a thick, guttural language he could not decipher. Ironically, it was surprising that they spoke in an unfamiliar language, and made him question the notion of their origin. But he had no time to wonder beyond that.

The reptilians stacked in front of the broken husk of the hangar doors, and appeared ready to enter the building. It was this action that sealed their demise.

Six merged from his cover, squeezing the trigger of his rifle in four quick bursts. The high velocity rounds punched neat, circular holes through the skulls of his targets, splashing the wall beside them with crimson blood and pinkish brain matter.

Six did not wait long and stepped over their corpses. His pace quickened by the downward spiral of events. Whatever these things were they wanted access to the wreckage and were fully willing to assault a government facility for it. He could not allow that, not with the way the situation was developing.

Following in the footsteps of the dead creatures, he stopped just in front of the doors, readied himself for the approaching violence and confusion, and then rushed inside.

* * *

Felina dived to the side, avoiding the hail of orange lasers that perforated the air she had just been occupying. Growling low to herself, the feline peered from behind the holo-terminal and returned fire with her sidearm.

"Dr. Maine, keep your head down!" She hissed, grabbing the panicked scientist by the wrist and forcing him to crouch low beside her.

"Lieutenant, what's happening?" The kat asked fearfully, though he continued to listen to her advice as he huddled into a smaller ball, tail tucked tight to his chest.

She might have responded to his question, had she an answer for him. Her brain was still a little fuzzy from the explosion that had knocked her off her feet, but she knew enough to understand that whatever the hell was going on, it had something to do with the starship wreckage.

 _Godsdamned army's never around when you need them._ She wasn't sure why it would take so long for a military recovery unit to arrive, but at the moment that was not her priority. Thoughts like that wouldn't matter if these things killed her.

Checking the charge in her pistol, she lifted her head slightly above the holed holo-terminal in front of her and sighted another one of those giant reptiles as it lumbered towards her, covered from multiple positions by its squad. She didn't know what these things were, but they were professional and organized.

Tongue running across her parched lips, the feline exposed herself for a handful of seconds, targeting the wide-open scaled creature and tapping her trigger rapidly. The weapon in her paws hissed as it spat out an accurate burst, the flurry of lasers skillfully landing on her adversary, center mass.

Armor bubbled and scaled hide peeled away under the high energy bolts. She watched in grim satisfaction as it dropped to the floor, grunting silently as its lungs were charbroiled.

Felina did not have long to celebrate her minor success before a storm of retaliatory fire smashed into her cover, and she watched in panic as the thick slab of metal and electronics visibly sagged, melting under the harsh fusillade.

It would not be long before they had nowhere to hide.

She looked back to the scientist, huddled in fear and muttering incoherently to himself, and cursed. It'd been stupid to leave her equipment behind, at least she had the damn common sense enough to keep her sidearm with her, otherwise this exchange would have been even more one-sided then it already was.

She could at least assume from the constant sounds of combat, that the rest of the unit that had been assigned here was still alive and doing their best to hold against this unexpected assault.

It was unfortunate that she and the doctor would probably be dead before any of her officers could come and help. Undoubtedly they had their own problems to deal with right now. They'd have to try and get out of here on their own.

"Doctor, can you hear me?" She looked back to the scientist currently jabbering to himself, and realized that he was probably going to be of no good to her. And she could hardly blame him, this was definitely far beyond what he expected when he went to college for his degree.

The feline sighed. "Sorry for this doc." Raising her handgun, she smashed it across his temple, his muttering silenced as he slumped into unconsciousness.

Grabbing the insensate kat by the collar of his lab coat, she located their next piece of available cover and she readied herself to cross the distance. It was not the best plan, but it was still better than cowering behind the table as it was slowly melted away by concentrated laser fire.

Felina mumbled a prayer and hunched low, leveraging the comatose researcher onto her shoulder before launching herself forwards, her legs pounding against the concrete floor as she sprinted to the next available piece of cover closest to the opposite doors, their best chance at getting away from this encounter with their fur intact.

Fully expecting to be cut down by a withering volley of weapons fire, she was instead surprised when she heard a thunderous roar coming from behind her. The sound was unlike anything she had heard before. The closest she could come to describing it, was rainfall against sheet metal but deeper and deafening in volume.

Whatever it was, it proved to be the distraction she needed and the feline made it to the overturned table out of breath, and not full of holes. Felina set the scientists down gently, propping him against the upended desk as she reached to her holster to retrieve her sidearm.

The feline froze when she felt hot steel press against the back of her head. That was also the moment she recognized that the sounds of battle had grown silent.

" _Don't move."_

Felina flinched at the voice, and she knew she would never forget it however long it was she had left to live, masculine and loud, grating to the ears like broken bottles in a cement mixer.

She briefly considered her options, realized they were practically nonexistent, and decided to obey the demands from her unknown captor.

" _Stand up, slowly."_

The voice grunted sternly and the panicked feline complied, rising unhurriedly to her feet and making sure he could not misconstrue any of her movements as antagonistic. While she listened to his commands, she desperately tried to recall anything she had learned in the classes she had taken on negotiation she had studied in the academy, but she was terrified when she drew up only blanks. She was far too fearful to think that far back.

" _Hands up."_ The male ordered harshly, and as she moved to follow his instructions she felt his boot, hard edged and metallic, kick against both her legs and spread them apart. A hand soon followed, equally armored and rigid, as it combed over her uniform, obviously searching for hidden weapons. Seemingly satisfied that she was only lightly armed, the hand stopped at her waist, grabbed the sidearm holstered there, and appropriated the weapon.

" _Kneel."_ He barked aggressively, and when she did not immediately adhere to his demand, he shoved his boot into the back of her knee, and she dropped to the floor with a grunt of pain. The hot sensation of the barrel of his rifle returned, and she was embarrassed when a pathetic whimper escaped her trembling lips. She was proud however, to realize that she was not crying. If this was to be her end, she would at least like to go out with some dignity.

Her whimper turned into a mewl when a hand roughly grabbed her arm, pulling it sharply against her back, and not a second past before her other appendage soon followed. Her ear twitched at a new sound, like a pants zipper, and she felt a sharp sting around her wrists as they were bound together with plastic cordage.

The barrel pressed against her head retreated as a fist closed around the collar of her uniform, and she was hoisted effortlessly off her feet with a single arm. Her attacker dragged her across the hangar and deposited her none too gently against the far wall, her muzzle pressed roughly against the steel. A minute of nervous silence passed before another kat was dropped beside her. It was Dr. Maine, unconscious, but alive and strung up as tightly as she was.

" _Do not attempt to escape and you will live."_ His parting words drew confusion from Felina; they were softer, if no less coarse.

Tied up and forced to kneel against a wall, all she could do was listen. She tested her bonds of course, but they were far stronger than she would have expected from a zip tie, and she knew she would not be able to break free without help.

Left with little recourse, she instead focused her efforts on listening to the footsteps of her attacker as he moved about the hangar. Minutes passed in tense silence, until she heard the heavy footfalls of her captor as he returned.

As before his armored hand grabbed her shirt and she was lifted up with no sign or sound of effort from the male as he retrieved Dr. Maine as well. Her vision whirled as she was crudely carried by the unknown assailant. Whoever they were they must have been a giant. Her feet did not even touch the ground, and the Doctor's unconscious body only scarcely brushed against the concrete, and he was being carried by the waist.

 _All information gathered indicated a bipedal being, though with a significantly larger stature then kat standard._

Large than…

Felina's chest constricted and a deathly coldness clutched her heart. It made sense in a crazy illogical way.

Her revelation was interrupted by the sound of an explosion, and she nearly flew from her captor's grasp as the hangar detonated, the feline witnessing first hand as all evidence of the starship and its pilot was burned away. And she could only watch as she was abducted from Megakat R&D by an honest to gods alien.

Helpless in his clutch, she hung suspended from his hand, wondering at her uncertain future.

* * *

 _AN: As you are probably noticing, this will diverge rather sharply from the original version of this story. I'd like to believe this is a more realistic and interesting interpretation of the situation, and I hope I am being more true to form of how a spartan might respond to such a radical change in environment. Reviews and favs are always appreciated and I hope you are enjoying it so far._

 _Keep the faith!_

 _Drake_


	4. Duty and Obligation Memories and Regret

Duty and Obligation; Memories and Regret

There was a saying that existed within the military, a familiar parlance created to label the fickle and vindictive nature of reality. It was, regrettably, a phrase perfectly used to describe the utter irrationality of his current circumstances.

No plan has ever or will ever survive first contact with the enemy.

It could be said that at the moment he had no precise enemy, no true opposition in the way he was used to, but the spartan was not so certain that was as true as it had been the day before.

While asset denial had been performed successfully, that did not mean all went as he had predicted. In point of fact, it had gone perfectly pear shaped, or FUBAR as the more western soldiers in the UNSC dubbed such a disastrous situation.

Six ruminated in the warehouse office, pacing irritably within the closed confines as he struggled to devise his next course of action. He was more than tense; his nerves had been tied together and were currently being pulled apart by wild horses. The strain on his composure was immense, and it was only under the sheer power of his will that he did not do something he might regret.

And he could blame no one but himself.

The spartan paused midway through his seven-hundred-and-thirty-sixth consecutive circuit of the miniscule office space, noticed that his gauntlets were shaking, and suppressed his trembling with a heavy sigh. Impotent anger would get him nowhere, nor would wallowing in his mistake make it disappear. What's done is done. And it was time he dealt with his decisions.

Noble Six moved to the desk, lowering his considerable stature to peer through the boarded office window, and frowned when he noticed that his current irritant had not disappeared.

So… he was not delusional then.

Unfortunate.

To compound an already stressful predicament, both of his nuisances were now conscious, examining their barren surroundings with panicked eyes and muttering quietly amongst each other… conspiring and planning their alien machinations.

Noble Six's lips spilt into an unpleasant grimace.

He should have killed them. It would have been the most sensible decision given the events that transpired. Had he done as he would have been instructed if he was still in contact with his handler, he would not currently be facing such a catastrophe. The man was honestly confused. He had no such crisis of morality for the saurian creatures, and in a way he was at least justified in his choice in switching to lethal methodology. Unlike the kats, he had not heard mention of these creatures from online media, and unlike the felinoid species on this planet they spoke a language he could not comprehend. Factoring the knowledge that they had assaulted what he knew was a government compound, with the vague intent to secure the wreckage of his sabre, he was unwilling to take the risk that UNSC technology might transfer control to an even more enigmatic organization.

He had already killed to maintain his secret.

So why had he paused? What was it that stayed his hand from doing the same to the original procurers of the retrieved technology?

 _Flakes of plaster exploded through the air, sharp and deadly like shrapnel. Light, harsh and blinding, flashed inside the room. Voices raised in shock, their surprised utterings silenced by a deadly staccato of gunfire. A child screamed._

 _A woman wept, the sound loud and primal._

 _Unforgettable._

Noble Six banished the resurging memory with a shake of his head. Recollections of the past were no good to him here, were better off forgotten.

He composed himself, reining his focus back onto the present, where he was needed.

Right now he was facing a very real and very immediate problem.

One moment of mercurial irrationality, a second of indistinct hesitation; that was all it took to throw his already bare boned plan into absolute chaos. His sabre was destroyed, its advanced machinery now beyond study and reverse engineering, but now he had two hostages.

One step forward, a hundred steps back.

The spartan resumed pacing.

An indeterminate amount of time passed, most of it spent in fierce internal debate. The black operations operative could not, for the first time in many years, decide on his next action. The logical conclusion was to continue as planned, attempt to contact the UNSC or otherwise find a means off this planet.

But he was beginning to doubt the veracity of such a proposal.

"HEY!"

The spartan stopped pacing as a voice cut deep into his concentration, loud, effeminate, and noticeably displeased. Returning to the barred window, he looked past the wooden planks and down to the warehouse floor below. The female, her hands tied and her legs trussed, had managed to sit up, and was leveraging a thoroughly annoyed glare upwards.

"Whoever you think you are, you can't keep us here. I'm a police officer!" She yowled in warning. But her efforts had no effect. If she had thought to sound authoritative and intimidating, then she was more so the fool. From his position her declaration came out as pompous and dangerously ignorant.

What basis did she have to act so conceitedly? He was fairly confident that at the moment he was the one holding all the cards.

The male, a scientist from what the spartan inferred from his seemingly universal clothing, seemed far more aware of their standing, and made no such assertions or waived threats. He instead remained lax upon the floor, silent and anxious. And while at least one of them seemed aware of the gravity of their predicament, he could not deny that the loud mouthed feline was not entirely incorrect.

The spartan's grimace darkened.

He could not keep them here. The building was not only incapable of permanently housing captives, but he could not afford the risk nor had he any desire to play warden for an extended period. His position on this world was tenuous enough already that to exasperate it any further was simply foolish.

Something would have to be done.

Noble Six glanced down, to his hand resting upon the rifle laid across the desk. The sensors in his glove relayed information to his HUD indicator, displaying a graphic in the upper right corner informing him that he had 22 rounds remaining, the same magazine from the night before.

The spartan heavily considered reducing that count to 20.

He sighed, retrieved the MA37 from the desk, took a glance about the empty office, and departed the room silently.

* * *

"Hey asshole! I know you can hear me!" Felina called out once again, her voice trained during her time at the academy to reach a noise she knew could be heard from all the way up in the office loft.

"Lieutenant!" Dr. Maine hissed under his breath, the kat's muzzle twisted with healthy trepidation that his companion did not seem to possess. "I do not think it a wise course of action to antagonize our captor."

His plea, logical as it may have been, was ultimately disregarded.

Perhaps it was because of the countless wild situations she had been forced to deal with, maybe she was just growing used to these kinds of things. Felina didn't know for sure, but whatever it was, she sometimes did not react in a way that met expectation, did not have the same regard to the inherent dangers as most officers in her current predicament might.

Like right now, despite having been so close to death the night previous, she was, as of that moment, quite livid. Considering the effort taken, their katnapper should at least have the decency to not leave them sitting here for hours on end.

Godsdamnit.

She had to go to the bathroom!

"Stop hiding you bast-"

Her next fiery taunt, armed and ready to fire with extreme prejudice, died in her throat when she heard the warehouse office door unlock. She did not know what to expect, certainly someone quite large, she knew that much from experience. After all if they were tall enough to carry her around by the scruff of her neck like a kitten, you couldn't really call someone like that small. _They_ also had to have been a _he_ , a male whose voice sounded more like churning construction equipment than anything else. And while she tried to rationalize why a suspected alien might speak their language, she figured that wasn't really conducive to getting them out of their current situation. There were quite a few other things that were more important.

Other than those few identifying factors, that was all she really knew about their captor. Despite her best efforts and violent wiggling, she had not been able to catch a look at the person that had grabbed both her and the doctor, especially after he had grown tired with her struggling and clamped his cold metal hand around her neck in a vice-like grip. And since his gauntlet was large enough to fully encapsulate her throat she decided it was best not to press her luck.

That was warning enough for her. Just because the big bastard hadn't put something hot and deadly into the back of her head, didn't mean he didn't plan to. And while her first idea had been to play along until she could find a way to get herself and Dr. Maine away, several strength tests on the crazy zip-tie around her paws and ankles told her that no amount of effort would have her escape from her bonds.

Godsdamned alien technology.

Her next idea was probably more effective, but undeniably far more foolish. She wasn't sure if she should be grateful that yelling insults at their _oh so generous_ host had finally born fruit. But when the door opened to the office upstairs, revealing the thing that had kidnapped them, Felina began to actually question the cleverness of her plan.

She remembered a few conversations she had with some of her friends in the force, usually after watching the typical sci-fi flick that popped up around the summer season. And she had a few friends outside of her work that enjoyed those unusual eastern mecha animations, the ones with the giant robots that either scrapped each other or fought off equally massive and dangerous aliens or various other mutant monsters that sold their quarterly margins.

None of that had prepared her for actually coming muzzle-to-muzzle with the real thing.

Sure, the metal golem thundering down the flight of iron stairs wasn't the same size of those colossal machines her friends excitedly raved about. But when that hulking metal figure was a full head and a half taller than the tallest kat you knew, and was armored in overlapping plates of impenetrable, fire blackened metal that bulked out their already enormous figure considerably, those kinds of doubts didn't really come to the surface of her thoughts.

It was becoming blatantly apparent as to how this individual had been able to walk away from that crash.

At that moment she was rather busy embarrassing herself. Even though conscious of the way the hinge in her jaw seemed to have popped out of place, she could not reel it back in _because gods how did they make someone that freaking big?_

The giant metal creature passed the last stair rung and crossed the short distance between himself and his captives, standing, no _towering_ above them, enclosed in a hulking mech suit that bristled with previously unseen weapons that were as equally huge and intimidating as their owner, undoubtedly a great feat in itself considering the soaring dimensions and instinctive intimidation of the one who wielded them.

Felina had seen a lot of unusual things in her career as an enforcer, giant slime monsters and saurian beasts ripped from time to rampage aimlessly down Megakat Plaza, and as of last night those ugly lizard things could safely add themselves to the list of prejudicial bullshit forced upon the brave defenders of this besieged city, but this… this took the icing off the cake, grabbed the cake, and cast it violently upon the ground.

Anything she might have said in that moment was lost somewhere along the junction between her brain and her mouth. And instead of impressive snark in the face of impossible odds, it kinda fizzled off into a high pitched mewl, like a kitten, which was what she felt like when kneeling prostrate before this titan.

Why did aliens have to be so damned big?

Trussed up like a seasonal ham and disarmed thoroughly, she had already been feeling pretty vulnerable. But right then, as that huge alien loomed above her, its eyes concealed behind an impenetrable black visor, but undoubtedly locked onto her defenseless position, she realized just how irrevocably screwed they were.

"Uh… hello?" She mumbled dumbly after matching the alien's stare for several minutes, unsettled by the tapered, non-reflective faceplate of his helm and the fact that he made literally no movement as he mutely scrutinized her. It was… disturbing that someone that big could remain so utterly still. That should not be possible, nor was it fair that a creature already so inherently dangerous possessed yet another tactical advantage.

As if spurred by the sound of her voice, the alien switched from still as stone to driven action.

Felina watched in quiet bafflement, and then verbal panic, as he stepped passed her, roughly seized Dr. Maine by the collar, and started to drag the now violently distressed kat to the other side of the warehouse. It was blatant to both that whatever the alien's intent, it would not end well.

"HEY, LET HIM GO!" She screamed at the giant armored creature, straining ineffectively at her restraints, as if new motivation could ever prove enough to snap the shackles comprised of extraterrestrial alloy beyond conception.

"P-please don't hurt me. I'm just a researcher." The doctor babbled near incoherently as he was thrust cruelly against the wall. Maine's previous prattle exploded into a disjointed mess as the alien unholstered Felina's sidearm and jammed it into the back of his head.

Hissing in frustration, she frantically renewed her struggle to break free from the steel filament manacles, muscles flexing as she thrashed wildly, fighting harder than she had ever before to escape her bonds. "STOP… PLEASE!" She begged, supplicated, whatever she could, uncaring that she sounded so utterly pitiful as long as she didn't have to watch another kat die in front of her eyes, at the hands of her own weapon.

Neither of their pleas seemed to phase the armored creature as it dropped its hold from the Doctor's collar and grasped his neck, lifting the feline until he dangled several feet from the ground, the barrel of her handgun still pressed tightly against his skull.

" _The aircraft…"_ The alien barked loudly, his voice nearly deafening inside the confines of the empty warehouse, shocking in the fact that he finally dained to speak, in so with a growling reverberation that struck primal fear into the two kats. It was a voice that did not promise death, but guaranteed it. _"What is the extent of your knowledge regarding its operation?"_

"I… what?" Dr. Maine wondered, driven to near delirium at the rapid degeneration of coherent thought in the face of mind numbing terror. His confused reply proved unsatisfactory, and their captor pulled back the gauntlet holding up the doctor, and slammed it into the wall with enough force to rattle the feline's brain.

" _What have you learned?"_ He barked gruffly, his deathly tone an unspoken warning that to provide substandard information would not be without repercussion.

The Doctor, nose bleeding a profuse trickle of crimson fluid onto his clothing, was quick to formulate a more intelligible response. "Almost nothing!" He mewled nasally, wishing that his arms were free so he could tenderly rub his bruised muzzle. "What little we did understand and even what we didn't, was downloaded onto a portable storage drive inside the hanger where the wreckage was located. By now it has either been destroyed or recovered by the enforcers or whatever attacked the compound. I swear!" He winced, clearly expecting his face to be reacquainted with the wall.

A full minute transpired with no activity from their abductor, sixty seconds where Felina watched in uncertain fear and Dr. Maine trembled in wait for the death he all but expected.

The scientist instead uttered a short gasp as he was released, dropping painfully onto the concrete below him. But he dared not get his hopes up, watching the sidearm still clutched in the alien's left gauntlet with reasonable apprehension.

An indeterminable amount of time passed, where the alien remained motionless. Neither feline made any attempt to move, warry of the weapon the giant armored creature still carried, and the fact they were in no position to make an escape. To even think of overpowering their captor was laughable.

Really, what would they do even if they were not tied up?

Break their arms on his armor?

Then without warning the alien shifted into motion. Swiftly holstering the appropriated handgun, the metallic pistol adhering easily to the armor plate on his left thigh, he turned, leaving the doctor where he laid, and moved towards her. Felina eyed the hulking creature warily, her unease increasing dramatically as he unsheathed a small blade she recognized as her boot knife.

A thousand and one terrible images flashed rapidly across her eyes as she stared up into that unreadable visor of impermeable obsidian, and she could almost feel the sharpened steel digging into her throat, sawing through her larynx with an oxymoronic fusion of pitiless savagery and clinical efficiency.

She took a sharp intake of breath as he stopped and crouched beside her, expecting to be dealt the demise she could so easily envision. So it was then the high pitched clatter of metal on concrete hit her sensitive hearing and she watched in curious confusion as her dagger tumbled from his opened palm into reach of her paws.

Expecting some sort of explanation, some method to this new madness, she earned nothing as the giant metal golem stood up from his haunches and walked away. Everything about this screamed unusual, even more so than the already established fact that the thing in that armor was alien. His actions seemed disjointed, meticulously enacted yet thoughtlessly contrived. He was… paradoxical, a walking contradiction that baffled her with its terrifying unpredictability.

There was an unfathomable logic and confusion to his actions, their captor possessing terrifyingly precipitous decision making ability and no desire to linger on perceived formalities, even in this bizarre situation. More than that there had been a dangerous aura lingering in the air, as if they were sharing an enclosed space with a predator insecurely chained, liable to snap at the slightest provocation and break past its fragile restraints.

Her eyes followed him suspiciously, in partial disbelief that he would threaten their lives, then just up and leave them be with such surreptitious abruptness. But that seemed exactly what he intended to do, and within moments he was gone, disappearing through the warehouse door without a sound, and she noticed only in that moment that despite his encumbrance and stature, that he had not produced any noise outside of his deep baritone.

A shiver raced down Felina's spine as she wiggled closer to the blade that would secure their freedom. And while an endless expanse of questions raced across her mind, her biggest concern was wondering just how she was going to explain all of this to her Uncle.

"Don't worry Doc." She looked to the sniffling feline with an encouraging grin that she struggled to find amidst her shattered composure, as she placed her knife against her binding and started on the lengthy process of escaping her binds.

"I'll get us out of here."

* * *

As a matter of principal Callie didn't let anything surprise her anymore. In a world where near on a weekly basis she was forced to dodge abduction from a plethora of terrorists masquerading as supervillains and personally involve herself in complex, life threatening plots to save Megakat City, she could not afford to.

At least she had thought there was nothing left that could really startle her. But that morning, as she sat at her kitchen counter and flicked on the small television she had hooked up to the wall, Callie realized that there were still things that could completely one up her expectations.

"… _.attack on Megakat R &D by unknown assailants. While information is still coming in, we have confirmed reports that Dr. Elias Maine, lead researcher for the regional aeronautics program, and Feline Feral, an Enforcer Lieutenant and niece of our very own Commander Ulysses Feral, were not found in the aftermath and are now considered missing. Updates on the situation will be made following any new developments. This is Ann Gora Kat's Eye News."_

Cereal sitting forgotten on her counter, Callie was already at the door to her apartment in the time it took for the channel to go to commercial. There were so many things she needed to do. She had to get in contact with the commander, ask Manx for permission to visit Megakat R&D, and maybe even give the Swat Kats a call. If there was anyone that could help her find Felina, odds were they could get it done, and do it faster than Feral could. As much as the kat hated them, there was no denying they were good at their jobs.

Bursting from the revolving doors at the entrance to her apartment building, she was already flagging down a taxi when her purse began to ring. Suspecting that it was probably the mayor calling her in for an early start to her shift, which would not have surprised her considering someone had to start running damage control and he was definitely not the kat for the job, she reached into her bag and answered the device as her taxi pulled up to the side of the street.

Glancing at the screen, she was somewhat off put to see that it was an unknown number, but answered anyway after a moment of hesitation.

"Callie Briggs, Mayor's aide… who is this?"

* * *

The knife spun in the air, the non-reflective metal a muted black as gravity dragged it down into the waiting grasp of the spartan-III. The blade rested there for only a moment before it once again lifted skywards in a rotation of movement that had been circulating consistently for the past serval hours, and was the only inclination of life from the otherwise motionless soldier.

The nervous tick was uncommon, and usually a sign that his patience had frayed and was on the precipice of violent action. Considering his monumental temperance in situations where most men would degenerate into incomprehensible sacks of jabbering flesh, it was an incredibly unusual impulse.

A near inaudible noise came from beyond him, and in a single moment he snatched his blade from the air and launched it from his gantlet with the velocity of a high caliber round.

Eleven and a half inches of diamond coated metal punctured through concrete in an explosion of blood and feathers. The tension in his body loosened as he recognized the corpse of his observer.

Noble Six eyed the length of his blade lodged into the speared carcass of a pigeon with a self-deprecatory sigh, allowing himself a single shake of his head as he realized the depth of his tension, sharper even then the knife that had tasted its first kill, not on a deadly adversary, but an overly curious bird.

He might have questioned the existence of familiar fauna on this world, if not for the fact he had long ago stopped searching for reason amidst the absurdities of this planet. He was no erudite scholar. He did not care about superfluous information. His only interest lay in anything pertinent to his immediate task.

So it was that the spartan retrieved his blade, wiped the blood from the span of black metal, and sheathed it into its holster as he returned to his perch at the edge of the highest building overlooking the harbor district.

The action appeared to be prudently timed, as his audio receiver detected the wailing of sirens and he watched as a cadre of police cars screamed into the warehouse sector with the screech of tires on asphalt. He studied the convoy of vehicles as they pulled to a stop beside the structure housing the pair of individuals that had once been his captives. As his thoughts returned to previous actions, he grimaced in irritation.

The risk he took was not as calculated as he would have liked, and was the first time in his career that he was not entirely confident in his decision. Allowing prisoners to walk away, especially those that were the only creatures on this planet fully aware of his existence, went not just against instinct, but simple common sense. The only argument he had in favor, was that the lack of general logic in this place necessitated nothing and insofar had only disproved his usual method of operation.

He had been trained to operate against threats that could always be resolved through elimination. If all else failed he could always fallback on the tried and true practice of killing anything that stood against his aims.

That was not true on this world.

The war against the Covenant was less than conventional. There was no diplomacy involved, no adherence to the standards of the redrafted Geneva Convention in 2163. It was with this consideration in mind that limited his actions so heavily, and he was forced to remind himself that he was not currently engaged in a conflict where anything and everything that was not human, was inherently an undeniable threat.

The zoom on his HUD was superimposed by a crosshairs graphic as he drew his rifle and it automatically synced with his display. And as the cat-like aliens of the municipal law enforcement agency emerged from their vehicles, he sighted in.

Noble Six scanned the squad of officers, searching for identifying markers or insignias that would ascertain the importance of the individuals he had released. On the fourth target he cocked a brow in subdued interest. In all his projections he had not predicted they would draw in the police commissioner himself.

While most things did not make sense here, he was at least able to recognize some form of ranking category, and knew that the large feline had to be the one in charge, if only as a correlation to his decorative dress uniform and chevron ornamented lapels.

At the sight of a commanding officer, Six was forced to suppress the desire to billet a round into his skull. The assassination of a command rank was high priority in the war, and he had undergone several covert operations to eliminate key personnel in the Covenant army.

But this wasn't the war.

The spartan reluctantly removed his finger from the trigger and readied to sit in for a long recon. From such a gaping distance his receiver would not be able to pick up any audio, but that was largely inconsequential. Now was a good time as any to learn how to lip read the local parlance through alien jaws.

* * *

"Are you certain that this is… accurate?"

"I've never fudged a statement before. And I think right now would be a pretty poor time to start." Felina replied somewhat sardonically, her tone indicating exactly what her opinion was on that assertion. When it came to questioning her character, the kat didn't take crap from anyone, not even family.

"I see…" Her uncle nodded hesitantly, and while hesitation was anathema to the Feral name, considering the current situation, at the moment such a lapse in composure could be waived off. "With both yours and Dr. Maine's testimonials acting collaboratively despite separate inquires, and no reason to question either of your mental faculties, I have no choice but to accept your reports at face value for the moment."

The commander looked away briefly, his eyes focused on the doctor as his broken snout was attended to by an EMT. Flashing strobes of blue and red light splashed against the grey walls of the warehouse buildings around them and tinted the environment in an alternating colorscape of police hues, and he could hear the thunder of boots on concrete as squads of Enforcers combed through the docks in search of something he was not sure he wanted to find.

Ulysses Sighed, a weighty defeatism in his tone that was just as alien to Felina as the creature that had captured and suddenly released her.

"I fear that the situation has evolved beyond our ability to properly contain."

"Uncle?" Felina gasped in surprise. No matter what insanity befell Megakat City, not the Pastmaster's primeval abominations, nor Dark Kats enigmatic machinations or the most violent of the metalikats crime waves, she had never heard him admit that there was anything he and the force could not handle.

Her uncle shook his head, and in that moment she could see the uncertainty in his eyes that still baffled her. "Felina what you have described to me, of the way this creature has conducted itself and what manner of equipment and weaponry it possess, is nothing like we have faced before. Whatever this thing may be, alien or otherwise, it is not a criminal. It is a _soldier_ , a soldier with an unknown mentality that has an adherence to rules and directives that we cannot hope to understand. Dr. Maine says it crashed on our planet. That means it is stranded here on an unfamiliar world with no means of contacting its superiors and no way of returning to its people."

The enforcer commander turned his head to look at the city in the backdrop behind him, a forest of dense concrete trees and a bustling population that would appear as nothing but a threat to a creature from the stars. "It is alone. It has nothing to take comfort in other than its training and its _will_ to survive. And you say it was not only able to infiltrate a heavily guarded research facility, but combat several other unknown creatures, destroy any and all evidence of its starship, capture yourself and the doctor, _and_ was capable of making its egress through the chaos without being noticed. The fact it interrogated Dr. Maine to discover the depth of their research into its ship, and seemed willing enough to kill to maintain its technology out of our paws means it is _terrifyingly_ capable, even in its current environment."

His gaze turned back to his niece, deathly serious. "It has only been four days since it crashed on this world and _look_ at what it has already been able to accomplish. We are not equipped to handle a situation of this magnitude. Our job is not to keep the city safe from existential threats."

"Who else can do it, Uncle?" She demanded. He was right about a lot of things, but that didn't mean that was good. In fact that was very, _very_ bad. "If you are right about this alien and the military gets involved, that would only be an explosive escalation. So far he hasn't killed a single kat. Despite everything he let me and Maine go. Uncle, he can speak our _language_! That means he can be reasonedwith. This is a crucial opportunity we can't miss. We have to deal with this _before_ the military arrives, while we still have a chance to stop things from spiraling further out of control."

If the military were to become involved there was no telling how badly all of this would end. And after everything she had seen from this alien, she knew there would be no way to avoid significant bloodshed.

A lot of kats would die, which meant she had to do everything she could to prevent that from happening.

"Uncle…" She spoke carefully. "Let me handle this."

Considering what she asked him, it was no surprise that he lost his composure.

"Felina, are you _out of your mind_? After everything we talked about you want me to send you after this thing? It almost _killed_ you!"

"But it didn't, Uncle." She cornered the argument. "I don't think it wants to hurt anybody. I think we need to give it a reason to not want to start killing. You don't hunt someone who thinks they're _being hunted_. If the military mobilizes against him he'll respond as any soldier would when pursed by foreign nationals. I'm a police officer, and he's smart enough to know that. More than that we've already met, admittedly not on the best of terms but I think I have the best chance at a peaceful resolution. I just need the green light, Uncle. Please."

Ulysses Feral was conflicted. There was no doubt that he trusted Felina more than other kat under his command. Family sentiment aside, she was smart, courageous, dedicated and highly capable. Regardless of what tabloids might print, she had earned her position, and not based on any suspected nepotism. Any kat with a decent head on their shoulders would be able to tell that through her accomplishments. But this… he feared this was a task beyond even a feline of her ability.

And yet as he looked into the unrelenting determination in her eyes, he knew that it would be of little use to deny her this. She would find a way to do it herself regardless, she always did.

He sighed in reluctant resignation.

"Very well, if you really think you can do this. I will allow you to head the investigation. On my part I will see what I can do to forestall any military action. Gods willing we might be able to salvage something positive from this damned mess."

"Thanks, Uncle. I swear I won't let you down!" Felina declared happily, enveloping the older kat in a brisk embrace before quickly pulling away.

Ulysses subdued the desire to smile at his niece, though she undoubtedly noticed the slightest curl at the corners of his lips. It was not his fault that she could so readily remind him of the young little furball that had loved to spend hours talking his ears off about the latest and greatest in enforcer technology. She had been an unusual child, but with their shared interest he had not minded that at all.

Now he just wished that his decision would not cost him someone that he cared dearly for.

"Yes, yes of course, I have no doubt you will prove yourself as capable as ever." He assured her, clearing his throat with a fastidious bluster and stepping back to reaffirm his composure before any of the other officers could remark on it.

There was also, one last thing to address. "However, putting in mind past events it is best if you spend a day or two off duty. After what you have endured I imagine you might need a break. When you come back I will have a document outlining what resources will be allocated for your operation."

"Of course, Sir." She saluted sharply. "I have no complaints about that." And truly she didn't. After dealing with that alien, a few days to herself sounded absolutely fantastic.

Nodding to her, her Uncle finally dismissed her with a wave and a departing farewell as he transferred his attention to the current deployment. Felina watched as he crossed the thin road to a pair of sergeants consulting a map spread out over the roof of a squad car.

She knew, deep down in her heart, that no matter what plan they produced, they would not find their target. He… well thinking on what she and her Uncle discussed and what she had seen, she was not sure anyone could find someone like that unless he allowed them to.

But that wasn't her problem. Not yet anyways. It was time for her to take a step away from all this and after a glorious kat nap at her apartment, and maybe a movie to take her mind off what happened, she might try and get a head start on her objective.

With thoughts in mind of returning home, she turned her back on the hive of clustered activity consuming the warehouse district and made to rendezvous with her friend, who she was confident had more than a few questions she wanted answered.

Feline found her friend, and a rather impatient taxi driver, parked outside the police cordon sectioning off the entrance to the docks. The tawny fur and dark pink uniform of her companion was visible in the blinking emergency lights atop the pair of cruisers, and Felina smirked when she saw the deputy mayor, deep in discussion with the officers stationed there.

And while it was clear they had little information to give, and even less they wanted to divulge, the tone of the conversation was nothing if not cordial. Deputy Mayor Callie Briggs was a well-known figure to the enforcers, and was usually closely involved in most operations in a roll similar as to that of their commander. It was often a topic of bemused amusement to some of the older kats on payroll, and was usually preceded with amused japes that there really was only one mayor in town, and they certainly didn't spend their days idling in Megakat City's varied golf courses.

Felina flagged Callie down with a happy wave of her paw as she trotted up to the wooden barricades, calling out excitedly as she approached.

"Hey Callie, long time no see."

The other feline, bright green eyes widening behind goggle-like glasses and muzzle splitting into a winning smile that could be found plastered on more than a few magazines about affluent citizens, seemed both glad and relieved to see her.

"Felina, I was just about to begin worrying about you." She scolded her friend playfully as she watched the police kat smoothly slide over the blockade and make her way over. "Your call was nothing if not bewildering."

"Sorry about that, it wasn't really something I could say over the phone." Felina offered in excuse as she gestured towards the taxi, the driver perking up slightly at the idea that he could finally get a move on.

After all, as important as his current faire may have been, business was still business.

"I'll explain it when we're a little more comfortable, maybe over dinner? After all I've been through I've worked up quite the appetite."

"As long as you pay..." Callie retorted humorously, drawing up a wider grin as she gestured to the yellow cab behind her. "Maybe then we'll be even for the cost of driving all the way out here."

Felina shrugged, willing to concede the stipulation with little fuss. "Fair's fair I suppose." Entering the back of the taxi, she smiled knowingly as Callie joined her. "After all, I think I finally have a story that will trump your little misadventure in Megakat Tower."

"Really?"

"Oh I think so. One could say my story is out of this world."

Ignoring the quizzical look Callie shot her way, Felina settled into her seat and sighed in relief, the stiff seat cushion in the car far outstripping the cold and hard concrete that had been her bed last night. Rubbing at the cramp in her neck, she supposed there was one thing to look forward to out of this mess.

Yeah… she was really excited about that time off.

* * *

Watching the yellow vehicle until it disappeared around a hill juncture at a bend in the road, Noble Six stowed his rifle and typed a brief note into his TACPAD in preparation for the index he intended to file of suspected key individuals in the local power structure. Considering his current instability, any pertaining information he could compile was vital to his survival. Knowledge was power, and at the moment it was the only power he had.

His training and equipment would only be able to carry him so far on this world. As loathe as he was to accept the realization, guns would not secure him the victory he was so accustomed to. Disappointing as that may be, he was not yet overly concerned. Of all the spartans in his peerage he may have not been the fastest or the strongest, or even the most psychologically stable, but where the others had died, he was revealed to possess the most important quirk. Above everything he was a survivor, and it was his increased capability for adaptation that had interested ONI.

If neither strength nor speed would secure him a tenable footing, he would just have to find some other way to stay alive.

What methodology that was however, yet remained to be seen.

As he did with his armaments, the spartan-III put away his deductive reasoning and scaled down the side of the building overlooking the docks, quickly navigating the fire escape latter before it buckled underneath his weight. Having surrendered his safe house, he would have to discern another location to make his own. That in itself would undoubtedly prove to be a difficult task. With a city as densely populated as this one, he could not rely on any possibilities in the interior. The dockyard had served well in that regard, but now that it was swarming with the local police force it was quite literally the last place he wanted to be.

The heavy weight of his boots striking the dirtied concrete of the alley under the metal stairs of the fire escape, Noble Six consulted the nav system in his TACPAD as he digitally scouted for his next temporary residence.

On the bottom left corner of his HUD, as his motion tracker conducted its next sweep, several contacts lit up in bright white eight or so meters to his left.

Quickly shifting his mass low, he ducked behind a trio of silvery, cylindrical trash bins near the mouth of the side street. In a moment the blade sheathed on his shoulderplate flashed in the air, the armored digits of his hand curling around the hilt as he peered from the shadows. The spartan was grateful in that moment that the more vivid silver polish of his armor had been charred into a charcoaled black that blended well into the dim night and shadowed alley.

It occurred to him in that moment that he might have been being dramatic, but he disregarded the notion. He had been seen by a local official, and no doubt an APB had been issued bearing his description, and it was not one easily overlooked.

He had let the officer and the scientist live, and it was time to pay the price. His actions would only seek to hamper his already hindered mobility.

With his augmented vison, and the minor light pollution coming from the pallid yellow street lights outside the backstreet, the spartan was able to discern the make and measure of the citizens of this city that decided to roam about at this late hour.

So it was that he felt his disdain roil and bubble inside him as his audio input filtered in low masculine muttering and feminine high pitched whimpering.

"Don't try anything funny, girl." The order was growled from the throat of a large, scarred kat, the sleeveless shirt on his torso and the tattered jeans wrapped around his legs, even the leather boots tucked into his pants, all of it was just so horribly… cliché.

The gang of various street toughs around him invariably followed the same timeworn, over-utilized formula, dressed in mismatched leathers and brandishing a varied arsenal of street weapons; lengths of rusted pipe, small switchblades, overly large knives, whatever it was bargain-bin criminals could scrounge up on demand.

The victim, as it always was in these situations, fit the scenario to the T, some poor girl that wandered out late at night at the wrong place and the wrong time. It was a tale as old as time, yet no less grim for it. Aliens, it seemed, had all the same problems as the human race.

She looked young, as far as Six could tell considering the unfamiliar physiology. Her eyes, a bold dark blue and visibly terrified, tried to keep all of her assailants within sight at the same time as her paws clutched tightly to the little black purse hanging from her shoulder.

"Please… don't." The female pleaded, her voice hardly above a whisper as she tried to argue for her freedom. The effort was pointless, she knew that, the would be rapists knew that. Six, crouched behind the trash bins, knew that as well.

He also knew that this was not his problem.

The blade in his gauntlet returned silently to its home and he turned about slowly. It was unfortunate for her, but it was not his prerogative to involve himself in every crime on this city's streets. If it were, he wouldn't be able to cross a kilometer before he was bogged down. To compound that fact, he was in alien, possibly hostile territory, to do anything that would attract any _more_ attention to himself was not just stupid, it was suicidal.

As a man who just recently contemplated his survivalist nature, he was not so foolish as to make a decision that would disprove the notion.

At the mouth of the alley, Six consulted both directions down the street, seeing not a soul in sight down either road. If he was lucky, he might be able to make a break for the forest again, maybe set up a little camp he could use until he came up with a better plan to get of this rock.

A piercing scream of mortal terror stabbed into his musing, and the rip of fabric was audible even from the distance he had put between himself and that which he left behind him.

 _Don't do it._ He thought to himself, the teeth in his jaws grinding as they clacked together tightly.

 _Don't look back._ The spartan's lips split apart, his mouth twisting in disgust.

It was not his problem.

He shouldn't get involved.

What mattered the life of some alien he didn't even know?

What good would it do for him to stop one crime when there were a thousand others being perpetrated in the night?

It was not his problem.

It would never be his problem.

"GODS, SOMEONE HELP ME!" The girl shrieked, her deafening scream overshadowing the leering remarks of her attackers.

It was a familiar sound, a _human_ sound.

 _The dust settled, the bodies still cooling after the heated exchange of weapons fire. Several ONI operatives cleared the site, combing through the corpses and scanning for IDs. The spartan stepped over the broken wrecks of humanity, scanning the apartment for targets as they set about their work._

 _One of the innies was still alive, a young woman, pale faced and red haired, screaming over the body of a child, his still features somewhat emulative of the one who held him so fiercely. The home had been a staging ground for the latest series of assaults on local UNSC installations. It had taken weeks to gather the Intel for the op, and now they could finally reap the rewards._

 _The spartan glanced to her as she kept screaming, the sound endless and exhaustive as she cradled the dead child in her arms. The other operatives ignored her, unarmed and not a threat, they instead combed through the terminals and paper records scattered about the apartment._

 _Leaving them to their work, Six watched as the woman continued with no sign of stopping. It was a visceral noise, the bare declaration of a heart that had been utterly destroyed. It rose and fell in pitch, but did not stop, a keening wail that dug into his mind with its eternal horror._

 _It needed to stop._

 _The harsh rattle of an assault rifle filled the air, and then finally there was quiet._

The spartan, despite every instinct, against every hardcoded desire, looked back.

Her plea unanswered, the gang of thugs had descended upon her like a pack of sharks in a feeding frenzy. She fought and struggled, her hands flailing, claws bared to cut anything within reach, but it was little use against so many. They had her pinned against the ground, their strength more than the match for a single young girl.

The leader, a vicious smirk of dark hunger on his muzzle, straddled her waist, grabbed at her chest, and pulled. Her shirt, made of cheap cloth, tore easily, and the ravening gleam in the gangers eyes brightened as her breasts were exposed.

His intent was clear, and her screams rose in volume before they stuffed her mouth with the tattered remnants of her clothes. They had silenced her screams.

And something inside the spartan snapped.

He descended upon them with a rage bordering on the cusp of madness. There were six targets between him and his objective.

It did not take more than twelve seconds to eradicate them.

The spartan charged into the fray, the blackened hulk of his armor little more than a shadow as he grabbed the first feline and crushed him between the adamant solidity of his titanium breastplate and the unforgiving masonry of the nearby wall.

Six's visor splashed with red fluid, and he felt the body in his grip _crumble_. Letting the broken remains fall as he stepped away from the cracked mortar and brick, he turned and launched his fist in the same motion, his curled gauntlet knocking a kat's head clean from his shoulders.

The spartan stepped through the fountaining geyser of blood, grabbing the feline nearest to him. His hand clamped tight, crushing the ribs in his grasp as he raised the alien up into the air with one hand and smashed him into the concrete with enough force that he _burst_ upon impact.

There was no time for any of them to react, and he snatched the next before they had even been able to process what was happening. He crushed the skull that wandered into his reach, pinkish ooze and shards of bone seeping from between his fingers as he stepped forwards and lanced his boot into the chest of the next. Organs exploded out from the kat's torso as his greave displaced the feline's vitals.

Viscera leaking down the narrow contours of his armor, he stepped over the piling bodies, falling upon the last of his foes with all of the hate and rage that had been festering inside him after recalling a decade of half-forgotten truths. His fists rose and fell with rapid strikes as he savaged the target of his ire, yet it was only seconds before his gauntlets met concrete and not flesh, and it was a moment longer before he realized this and rose from his hunched posture, taking an uncertain step back as his higher function returned to him with a tepid slowness.

All he saw was red, but that was easily fixed as he wiped an armored hand across his faceplate. A glance at his appendage, and a further examination of his armor, revealed that he had drenched not only his visor in the spilled vitae of his enemies, but the entirety of his Mjolnir as well.

A more intensive look at his surroundings revealed to him the full extent of the consequences found in his loss of control. There was only one other person here that was not torn apart, and it was the shell-shocked female huddled against the nearby wall, the black pitch of her fur sodden with shed blood and bits of flesh, and she stared at him with wild eyes. The alley around them was a horrid hellscape, as if he had fed the bodies through an industrial wood chipper.

Noble Six remained motionless amidst the wreckage pf his destruction, his mind struggling to reconnect strings of thought that had been abruptly severed. Amid the tattered tangles was a realization.

The spartan had lost control again.

It'd been a while since that last happened.

But that was not the worst of it.

This was more than a mistake. This was an utter lapse of discipline that he could not have afforded. Something like this…. he mused as he glanced about at the carnage, would not be overlooked. There would be an investigation, and if the woman went to the police, they would know who did this, and that if nothing else would be detrimental to his survival.

The choice was again obvious, kill her and there would be no witness. But that would defeat the point of his excursion, and would only worsen what was already a poorly handled situation. He should not have killed them. It would not have been difficult to subdue six lightly armed individuals.

But what he had seen, the senseless depravity… and the trigger of his memories.

Something had to give, and it was unfortunate that it had to be his reason.

This would not end well.

"Thank… t-thank you." A timid voice incurred upon his thought as he tried to figure out where to go from here. The female kat, while he stood there debating, had regained her senses and approached him.

The spartan glanced down to her, the feline hugging her chest to cover her nakedness as she looked up to him with a frightened, but hopeful expectancy. Her torn clothing was stained in blood and the crimson fluid was spattered all over her, but that did not seem to stop her from wanting to acknowledge her savior.

Six did not answer her immediately. He doubted she would appreciate it if he told her he did not want her thanks, that saving her life was a mistake, nothing but a worrying lapse in judgment. More than that he did not know what he would even say.

What did one say to an alien after murdering six of its species in a fit of blind rage?

Impressively, the young female took his silence in stride, spending that time tending to her appearance and gathering what little of her belongings that were still recoverable, that is to say not thoroughly soaked in blood or other things more gruesome.

After she had finished, and he still had yet to speak, she seemed to mull something over, and he watched in subdued fascination as she turned to him again.

"Would you…" She began hesitantly, her voice still hoarse from screaming as she paused to recollect herself. Taking a moment to visibly rearrange her thoughts, she spoke again shortly, this time with a sliver of conviction. "I… I don't live that far away. Could you maybe…"

The spartan, lost on what he had left, what he could recover after he had fucked up so monumentally, only nodded in silence. Whatever it was she wanted, all he really had left was find a way to make what he had done meaningful.

The idea of killing her now was… distasteful.

* * *

 _AN: So I think this chapter really earned the M rating for this fic, and the topic of the latter portion was definitely a step outside of my comfort zone, but it was needed to advance a concept for the plot. And in so I believe the title of this chapter is fairly reflective of its content, outlining Six's internal struggle with the nature of duty and the desire for what's right. His past is haunted by his strict adherence to his role as a soldier, and the regrets he carries with him because of that. And it is these memories and regrets that interfere with his obligations. The concept for this story will be largely based around Six's struggle to decide for himself what is right when there is no longer someone to feed him their own beliefs. Noble Six in this story is a somewhat different spartan then he is in LOTP, a slightly different past with a slightly different drive._

 _He wants to return home, and his greatest trial is to find a way to do that, that does not compromise his integrity. Meanwhile various parties with interests seek to interfere, whether on purpose or through happenstance. Hopefully this story will prove as interesting to you readers as it is to me._

 _In other news I hope the length of this chapter is satisfactory, the last few have been a little shorter than I would have liked. Progress on LOTP continues, however slowly, and Faded light is also on its way to another chapter release, though I'll try and get Legacy out first since it has not been updated in quite some time._

 _Thanks again as always and I hope you have enjoyed my idle interest._

 _Keep the faith!_

 _Drake_


	5. Torching the Midnight Oil

Torch the Midnight Oil

The call came in at 5:36 in the morning from a resident jogger on an early morning run. Having noticed a nauseating smell emanating from an alley on his usual route, the kat had decided to stick his head in and investigate. One minute later and a phone operator at the local precinct had received a panicked call. The feline had been nearly unintelligible on the line, but it was clear that there had been at least one fatality reported.

At 5:40 a patrol car had been routed to the location to investigate the claim, and arrived on site at 5:48. The officer, one Herek Lawson, contacted dispatch at 5:50, audibly alarmed, requesting support and a team from the crime scene services unit.

Detective Alec Ward arrived at exactly 6:01.

It was now (he glanced at his watch), 10:15, and he had not yet finished processing the scene. And that in itself was unusual, even for this town. Ward had been working Megakat for the past ten years, and he had seen a lot of things in that time, more so than even the usual depravity found in big urban developments. Working as a cop in a city with the highest crime rate in the nation was a lot of things, and pleasant was not usually one of them.

Today was turning out to be no exception.

Surprise… surprise.

As far as he could tell, there were six to seven bodies here in various states of… mutilation. It was honestly hard to discern what he was looking at, even after spending hours combing over the blood pools and scattered viscera. CSI had come in minutes after him with their high tech gear and fancy degrees, and they were just as slow on the uptake as he was, only about perhaps a third through with documentation. Considering the state of the victims, on-site identification was definitely off the table. There was no intact skull to examine, and Ward was not certain that even dental records would shed light on who these poor bastards were. In fact they were still trying to figure out what caused this, and seemed to be conflicted over whether it had been a large predator that had somehow wandered out of the forest, or if this was some kind of declaration of intent from a local gang. The presence of several varied weapons led credence to the latter hypothesis, but Ward was not so sure about that.

He had a lot of experience with gangs, and he had never seen _anything_ like this.

The only thing that anyone could seem to agree on was that these were not ritualistic killings, and that all signs indicated the attacker, or attackers, were motivated by extreme rage. Judging from information gathered their methods were ferocious and possessed no inclination of higher thought, emulating all the signs of late stage psychosis. The most alarming realization however, was the immense physical strength depicted.

Ward glanced to the cracked alley wall to his left, a shiver trailing down his spine as he studied the bloodied imprint of a body pressed into the brick and mortar. One of the techs had calculated the force necessary to create such an impact crater, and factored it somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,325 to 1,560 pounds.

The detective was both impressed, and terrified.

That was roughly the same as the collision of a small sedan.

Ward doubted they'd be able to start a preliminary investigation. Most of the evidence was tainted by the scene itself, with the deliberate disfigurement and the grime of an inner city backstreet, they'd be lucky to even ID the bodies, let alone find the perpetrator.

He shook his head as he reached into his coat and slipped a cigarette from a pack of _Lion Blues_ , balancing it between his teeth as he grabbed his lighter. The flicker of flames, followed by the comforting taste of tobacco and nicotine, ushered a sigh from his lungs as he followed the silvery trail of smoke with his eyes as it wandered upwards into the smoggy skyline of Megakat City.

Instincts earned from a decade of grueling police work warned him that this was the beginning of something much larger than it already appeared. An amused chuff worked its way out of his lips at that. With the luck the city's been having recently, he wouldn't be surprised if this was the introduction of another super criminal. And of all the things they didn't need right now, that was at the summit of a very large and imposing mountain.

There was a pressure in the very atmosphere of this town, a constant overbearing weight as the citizens waited helplessly for the next attack, looking up into the sky for the invisible anvil hanging above.

Ward wondered if this would be the thing to snap the rope.

* * *

 _She could smell the bitter sting of alcohol on his breath, and could see the wild gleam of narcotics in his eyes as he pounced on top of her. She struggled, but he was a giant compared to her small frame, and there were more males around him, grabbing onto her legs and arm, pinning her to the garbage littered concrete of the alley floor._

 _They were… they were going to…_

 _Her heart thundered in her chest, pushing out the mutterings of the male atop her as she let out a scream. She could_ _ **feel**_ _it. His…_

"Brenna?"

 _She screamed for help, from the gods, from anyone that could save her from this, from what they were going to do to her. Her fur shivered as she felt his paw grab her chest roughly, instinctively recoiling in disgust at the_ _ **animal**_ _atop her._

"Brenna!"

 _Her cries amplified as she felt her shirt rip, and a slimy sensation pooled in her stomach as she fully comprehend what was about to happen to her. Something dry and rough was stuffed into her jaws, muffling her outbursts, and her muzzle ached as it was split wide. She could see the hunger in the eyes of the male and his companions, and she knew in that moment that death would have been a kindness._

 _Then a gust of air blew across her and there was a shout of surprise, silenced by the powerful and loud crash of metal on brick. Hot wet fluid splashed over her eyes and she was blinded. But she could still hear the sounds of violence. More warm liquid spilled and she could scent the metallic fragrance of copper and something else that she had only ever smelled once before, distinct and unmistakable._

 _It was the odor of death._

 _The pressure on her limbs was removed violently, followed by cries of pain from the males who would have raped her. Her body worked on instinct, and she hurriedly scrambled away, her claws scratching against the concrete as she wildly scurried as far as she could until she felt the reassuring, protective sensation of a wall at her back._

 _She wiped a paw across her eyes to restore her vison, and only heard silence in the alley where there had once been only screams._

 _Blood, she was covered in it, her paw was more red than black, and she could feel the cooling viscera that covered her body, from the tips of her ears to the hand-me-down shoes on her feet._

 _She could_ _ **taste**_ _it, the metallic tang of aged metal, comparable to the flavor of an old coin._

 _Gods… it was everywhere._

 _Her eyes flickered about, and everywhere she looked there was_ _ **red**_ _. And the males… her stomach churned and she only just barely held back the urge to vomit as she kicked a severed paw away from her with a whimper._

 _They were all dead, but there was now someone else there with her._

 _She looked up, and saw him._

"BRENNA!"

The nightmare shattered, the shards of her daydream splintering and dissipating from her mind as someone shouted her name. Brenna looked down, to the untarnished blouse and long skirt she wore, and more importantly, at the distinct lack of blood and death. She eyed the nametag on her chest, and the black apron tied around her waist, and remembered where she was.

"S-Sorry Roark." She mumbled apologetically as she turned her attention to the dinner's cook, the male feline eyeing her with more concern than irritation, past the serving window separating the main floor from the kitchen.

The kat sighed and shook his head. "I don't know where your head takes you girl, but it certainly doesn't seem nice to me."

 _She could see the hunger in his eyes as he loomed above her._

"It's… not." She admitted, her fur bristling at the unwanted memory.

"Then you should probably focus on the present then eh?" Roark suggested as he pointed his spatula, dripping the grease, at the plate of food on the counter, and the four other orders that had piled up while she relived the horrors of the night before. "Here take that to table 4, and pick up the pace before the customers start to complain."

Quickly balancing the plate on her serving tray, she hurried to catch up with her orders and forced away the lingering dregs of fear that even now haunted her.

Brenna allowed herself to get lost into the work, for once finding comfort in the monotonous routine of her dead end job because it sure as hell beat remembering. Though that proved to be no easy task, every time a male customer smiled at her she had to bite back the automatic desire to fling her tray at him and bolt, and she was not certain what her boss would think if she screamed at every male that looked at her. But she pressed through, not because she wanted to prove something to herself, but because she had no other choice.

While serving tables wasn't lucrative, it certainly beat living on the street, and after the struggle she had just to get this job, she was very intent on keeping it for as long as she could.

Her shift passed, and when she managed to get through the entire day without relapsing, she considered that a small victory, and heaved a heavy sigh as she sat at the counter and counted her tips. Three one dollar bills, four fives, and a ten with a little smile face on its attached receipt. She smiled at that as she pocketed her earnings, remembering the kind male that had chatted with her. That had been a much needed reminder that not every one of them was a slavering rapist.

"Hey… you feeling better?" Roark's soft tenor made itself known as she looked up from the counter, watching as the cook slipped off his apron and fit his arms into his jacket.

"Yeah…" She nodded timidly, not wanting to think too hard and fall back into the memories.

"I'm alright now."

Roark eyed her carefully before he nodded, not entirely satisfied, but at the least relieved. "Alright then, I hate seeing you like that Bren." He admitted with a frown, allowing himself to use her nickname now that their shifts were over. Their boss, a rather crotchety old feline, liked to keep a tight ship at the dinner, and it was only after work that they could act more pleasantly.

Brenna smiled at his concern. Roark, for all his gruffness, acted more like the father she wished she could remember, than a coworker. "I'm not much a fan of it either." She muttered with a roll of her eyes."

The male harrumphed, before he eyed her uncertainly. "You… wanna talk about it?"

"No." She denied his offer in a way that was perhaps a little too harsh, but she had no desire to speak about it. "Maybe… maybe some other time." She relented upon seeing his concern deepen. "I think I'd just like to go home now."

She looked to him hopefully. "Could you give me a ride back? I… don't really feel like walking tonight."

He smiled kindly. "Of course, Bren."

* * *

She watched as Roark's truck disappeared around the street corner, a small smile lingering on her lips. He was good people, but he couldn't help her. Since she had left that bloodbath without calling the Enforcers, (because honestly she had no idea what she would have said), they couldn't help her either, not that she thought they could have. But that didn't matter… someone had already done that for them.

Brenna turned away from the street and eyed the worn down apartment building she called home, with reluctant disdain. The appliances and decor were at least a _decade_ out of date, and most of the other tenants were loud and disruptive, but it was cheap, and the owner was a nice old lady who was lenient on rent if she was having a particularly bad month.

She entered the building, noting again the yellowed walls of the foyer and the occasional piece of forgotten trash on the floor as she walked towards her apartment. It wasn't that far since it was on the first floor, and she was standing in front of her door and fishing for her keys within a minute.

Her paw digging through her purse, she searched past her cosmetics and the little mint candies she liked, until her paw wrapped around something hard and metallic. Extracting the copper colored steel, she inserted the key into the lock and twisted. The mechanism inside the door gave way easily enough, but the door itself… not so much.

With a grunt of exertion, she pushed her shoulder into the wood and on her second try it actually budged open enough for her to awkwardly slide her way inside, though she let out a muttered hiss when her elbow banged against the frame. Now on the other end of the irritating barrier, after pressing her full weight against the other side, she managed to close it with minimal effort.

Quietly muttering to herself for the hundredth time about how she _really was_ going to contact the building super one of these days, she kicked her shoes off, watching the cheap synthetic leather bounce against the wall and clatter to the floor before making her way deeper inside.

Her stomach growling as it always did when she finally came back home after a long grueling day waiting tables, she traveled down the short hall leading deeper into her apartment and turned left at the intersection that transitioned into her tiny kitchenette.

Her paws hit the tile with a clatter, the claws on her toes clacking loudly against the surfaced laminate as she moved to the cabinet and popped it open. Rifling through cans and cardboard boxes, she found her dinner. Setting the tin of tuna and the small package of instant rice onto the ceramic countertop, Brenna disappointedly eyed the rather subpar meal.

She sighed.

There was some truth to those jokes about living on one's own.

The feline bent down and grabbed a small pan from the lower cupboard, rising to stand, she soon caught something out of the corner of her vision.

She froze in place, a jolt of irrational fear emerging explosively from inside her, flashes of last night running through her mind as the muscles in her legs primed, ready to bolt out into the hall and out the door. Then she remembered there was a reason she was not alone in the apartment, and her unease settled.

Brushing a paw across her arm to pat down the fur that had risen up in her panic, she turned around and smiled hesitantly. "Good evening." She greeted the hulking armored figure, the black faceplate directed at her the only indication that he was looking in her direction.

The uncertainty of her smile lessened when he returned her address with a careful nod, the strange metallic fiber around his throat twisting and bunching together as his head ducked low with a polite deference. Although her nervousness was unaffected, she felt her fear dissipate as she stared at the giant male in black armor, which was unusual since she knew nothing about him.

Well she did know one thing at least.

Whatever he was, he had saved her from… something she would rather not think about. Brenna had nearly forgotten he was here in all honestly, after last night, and with work in the morning despite her exhaustion and trauma, she didn't remember much of what happened.

Now however, some things were starting to come back to her.

Having been nearly violated by a gang of thugs, she had not perhaps been entirely in the right state of mind and he had asked him to walk her home. The traumatizing experience had left her feeling distinctly vulnerable, and after the mysterious male had come to her rescue, admittedly in a way that resulted in an unforgettable and violent bloodbath, he made her feel… safe. Despite what he had done, such thoughtless brutality that only amplified the unnatural intimidation that exuded from his silent hulking figure, she was not afraid of him.

Rationally, any fear would be nonsensical.

How could she be afraid of the one that had saved her?

Brenna had initially extended her request in a moment of personal weakness, and by the time she realized what she had asked him, and the utter absurdity of her request, he had responded. And for whatever reason his reply was a nod, one that was starting to become increasingly familiar. Apparently it was his preferred method of communication.

He did not speak, for what reason she did not know. He seemed to understand her well enough when she spoke, but he was either incapable of verbally responding, or chose not to. But that was hardly a concern when she did not even know what he was. She had first thought that maybe he was with the Enforcers, but with his appearance, his weapons and armor, it was logical to assume instead that he had some ties with the military. She had not heard of any technology that matched the armor he wore and the weapons he had on his back, but she could easily reason that it was tech the army did not want to become public.

But that line of logic only brought more questions.

If he was with the military, what had he been doing in some random backstreet in Megakat City? She was of course immensely grateful that he had been there; gods forbid she had no idea where she would be now if not for him.

In the end, Brenna decided not to question her luck too closely. For whatever reason he had not left after returning her home, and she vaguely remembered watching him clean his armor in the bathroom before shuffling off to sleep in an exhausted daze and an upturned stomach.

And while everything about this situation utterly confounded her, at the moment she had no desire to see him go.

"Hungry?" She asked, shaking the pack of rice questioningly. The kernels inside the package rattled loudly as she looked to him curiously.

Brenna watched as the male slowly shook his head in the negative and retreated back into the shadows of her unlit living room. Her eyes followed him as he left, studying the body-hugging facets of his inner suit layer as it contorted snugly with his movement, and the feline began to think that maybe he did not belong to any organization she was aware of.

There was something… otherworldly about him.

* * *

Felina stared through the rolling credits on her television screen, her mind far away from the monster movie that had been livening up her otherwise silent apartment for the past two hours. She hardly even remembered the plot, some uninspired drivel about a lizard reacting violently to atomic testing. Apparently it was a fairly popular film overseas, and she was probably not giving it much credit. But after having chased a living breathing dinosaur through the heart of Megakat City, she supposed it'd be fair to admit that her opinion may have been colored by personal experience.

The feline sighed, a long and drawn out sound as she rolled off her couch and onto the floor with an annoyed grumble. She felt a cord of muscle twinge in her back when she made contact with the tasteless ruddy carpet that had plagued her fashionable eye for years, and Felina remembered where exactly it was that pain came from.

Not that she could really forget being imprisoned by an alien from outer space.

Those kinds of things tended to stick you.

She would never forget that obsidian death mask he wore for a face, or the gritty, emotionless cadence of his voice as he stood on the precipice of murder. His similarity to the feline form was the only thing that seemed to make sense about him. Her Uncle had agreed with her unspoken conjecture that he was some kind of soldier, she could hardly imagine a species that would equip its explores with such high grade equipment, or allow such a combative mentality.

At the moment he held Dr. Main, contemplating on whether or not to pull the trigger and splatter his brains across the warehouse wall she could almost _feel_ his indecision. She could envision that every fiber of his being was adamantly intent on pulling the trigger… but he did not.

He left not soon after, with an almost dismissive indifference.

And in that moment she could have sworn there were two people inside that armor.

Felina stared up into the ceiling, at the whitewashed plaster above her, and wished beyond anything to have been able to know what he had been thinking as he left. She tried to imagine herself in his shoes, or rather armor plated boots, she supposed with a quiet chuckle. What was it like to be so utterly alone, to be separated from not only her family and friends, but all of katkind? What was it like to feel hunted by an entire planet?

What would she be willing to do to get home?

She thought hard on those questions for a long time, her body sinking ever so slightly into the carpet as she lay distended out on the floor like a poorly imitated form of a tacky throw rug, and contemplated the immensity of such ponderings. Across from her the television rumbled loudly to itself, cycling endlessly through the title screen's audio as she considered something that had grabbed her attention far better than any movie could ever hope to match.

Felina could only think and wonder what he was doing right at this moment. Was he huddled up in some back alley, evading the capture he must all but be expecting? Was he at that second studying his dwindling supplies and wondering how in the hells he was going to survive this? Was he… was he planning on a way to retaliate against a perceived threat? Was he preparing to make a counterattack?

So many important questions, all without satisfying answers.

Suddenly the idea of spending a few days lounging about her home did not seem an optimal use of her free time.

Slowly rolling to her feet and stretching out the kink in her back, Felina walked around her couch and exited the living room. Her journey was one motivated by intent to be productive, and she soon found herself in the spare room she turned into a place she could work from outside of her office at the precinct. She sat in the chair and booted up the computer, listening as the internal fans spooled up and watching as the monitor lit up with the bright blue radiance of her operating system.

She waited a minute for the action to complete before inputting her password at the prompt screen, and after her desktop came into view, she wasted no time in pulling up a new document to work on.

Felina stared thoughtfully at the blank white page, empty and waiting to be filled. And after a brief thought her claws rattled loudly against the keys as she titled it _Facts and Theories_.

 _He's tall, at least seven or eight feet._

 _Wears heavy armor, advanced, unusually bulky in appearance… powered?_

 _Can communicate in local language. Learned or result of inherent similarities?_

 _Possesses enormous physical strength. Usual for species?_

 _Appears wholly willing to kill to ensure own survival or to secure secrets, but seems willing to utilize non-lethal methods._

There was a brief interim of silence as she examined her notes, and Felina growled in frustration at the content that would not even fill an eighth of a page. There was just too little fact and far too much conjecture considering the importance of her upcoming task. She was supposed to find a way to bring this guy in that would not result in multiple fatalities, and at the moment she couldn't think of a single method to achieve that goal.

He was well equipped, unbelievably strong, and benefited from an intense acumen of training and experience that a cop like her could not hope to match. She was an officer of peace, he was a soldier trained to kill, and seemed to have no compunction to do what he perceived as necessary.

And yet he had spared her…

A paw brushed across her muzzle and she sighed heavily into the pad of her palm. Felina had never met with failure before, nothing as burning and unforgettable as what happened at Megakat R&D. Whatever the situation she had always been able to find a way out of it using her own wit and skill.

And the alien soldier had effortlessly shown her how unserviceable her skill was in the face of otherworldly might. She'd been _helpless_ before him, thoroughly disarmed and reduced to an indigent captive at the mercy of his whims. He was, in every definition of the word, _superior_. He was stronger, faster, quieter, smarter… taller, whatever word she had in her arsenal his had a glaring – _er_ tagged at the end.

Truth of the matter was, she had no idea what she was dealing with here. And as difficult as her task would be, that didn't matter. Lives were on the line. So far information on what exactly they were dealing with had been put on stranglehold. There were only a few people currently aware of the truth and if that number increased, what was already a dangerous situation would burst into a blistering fireball of panic and paranoia that had the potential to cause incalculable damage.

And she was supposed to be the stopgap.

More than that she had _wanted_ this job!

Felina sighed once more.

If she could find him quickly enough, if she could convince him that his best option was to come with her, then she could stop the worst from happening, and help someone who was undoubtedly lost and scared.

As she stared at her computer screen, at the paltry data she had been able to assemble, she desperately tried not to think about the question that was itching so incessantly at the back of her thoughts.

If he was here, where was the rest of his kind?

* * *

Life had taken an interesting turn for Brenna, and she was not quite sure what to feel about the unexpected changes. The strange male, _The Black Knight_ , as she had taken to calling him, almost affectionately, as a result of his indistinctly feudal panoply and the burned black coloration of his suit of armor, had been a guest at her home for several days.

As such her apartment had taken an unusual atmosphere, almost pleasant she would admit. Ever since she'd been kicked out of the orphanage at eighteen she'd been living on her own. And considering that had been three or so years ago, that was a very long time to be without companionship. So, as unusual as he was, he remained a somewhat positive force of change.

He was a lot like the character from the storybook she had read through relentlessly in her childhood boredom. Neither of them spoke, they were both large and wore similar suits, although the living legend in this case featured a more modernistic display, and they even shared some traits.

The black knight in the story wasn't like the usual protagonists of children novels, more of an anti-hero now that she thought about it with the clarity of maturity that sharpened the idealistic haze of her younger years. He consistently appeared as a spirit of vengeance in more than a few iterations, an armored ethereal kat that dolled harsh judgment upon evil ne'er-do-wells.

And in that way both her initially unintended boarder and his fantastical equivalent were unquestionably alike.

Brenna looked up from the magazine in her lap, soft blue eyes studying the silent figure of her houseguest as he loomed somewhat ominously in the corner. Even resting on a knee he cut an imposing physique, and she had not yet grown accustomed to his incredible height.

She supposed it should be weird, that even days later she had not actually spoken with him, but… for some reason, that did not really bother her. His was a calming presence, a figment of sustaining company that she had not known she needed so desperately.

Brenna often wondered what it was he looked like underneath his helmet. She imagined an aristocratic feline, with a hard jaw like sculpted marble, piercing eyes of dark viridian and a striped completion like the large native kats from a faraway jungle continent. He certainly seemed to carry the striking build of the classical interpretation of a heroic figure of storied fables.

There definitely was little effort to hide his physique in that figure-hugging suit of armor. If anything all it did was dramatically emphasize just how… well-developed he was.

Yes he was very… masculine.

Brenna's ear twitched, and the young feline crossed her legs and tore her attention away from the large male across from her, studiously returning her focus to her magazine in an attempt to curtail the bubbling sensation inside her.

She was surprised that she could still feel _that_ impulse after the incident in the alley. Brenna had thought that such desires would have been suitably inhibited by fear of anyone possessing the extra appendage granted to those bearing the x and y chromosomes.

She could, at this very moment, confirm that no such reluctance existed, at least not for him.

The young kat blushed in embarrassment at having such a reaction to a male whose face she had not even seen yet. How childish she must be to succumb to such obvious truism. Enter hero A who rescues damsel B, B falls for A, roll credits. It was a familiar formula that would sell tickets for as long as there were young impressionable girls in the world with airy beliefs in the simple sanctity of romance, and thus the cycle would perpetuate till the end of time.

Brenna snorted, half laugh, half bitter growl, as she sunk further into the couch and ruminated on her thoughts.

Meanwhile, her savior and unexpected tenant, studied her from behind an impenetrable faceplate of solid onyx.

* * *

Six was… perplexed.

The spartan's calculative gaze lingered on the unusual black feline that listlessly ranged her eyes across an uninteresting publication of pointless social intrigue and irreverent gossip, clearly apathetic with its driveled contents, and yet she still persisted.

This was why he would never understand the civilian sector. Alien or otherwise they utterly mystified him with their inexplicable interests. It was almost fascinating enough for him to forget the questionable condition of his current stability, although admittedly, his interest might have also been a subconscious whim to remain ignorant of the seriousness of his predicament.

He did not know why this _Brenna_ seemed willing to let him stay at her residence, but he had as of yet found a solid reason to spurn her polite tending. He had little to no resources at his personal disposal, and after losing his last secure location at the hand of imprudent caprice, he considered his current position as somewhat of a small placation to soothe his ire at a series of rash decisions.

He was not sure why, but he did not feel threatened by the possibility that she would oust him to the local authorities. Something inside him seemed to believe in the opposite of such familiar pessimism. He could not explain this incomprehensible belief, but when he looked into her eyes, at two pools of sterling sapphire, he was... set at ease.

Seeing as days passed and a squad of police officers in heavy armor had not breached the doors and windows with the intent to storm the apartment, he felt his tenuous placement of trust had been vindicated.

The prolonged period of safe harbor had given him time to dwell on his current situation, and amidst his network research and growing data stores on relevant interests, he had pondered long and frequently on what his next move would be.

And for all his learned tactical acumen and extensive training for the wildest of scenarios, he drew up blanks. The only UNSC technology left on this planet was currently adhered to his body, and thus secure from tampering. The wreck of his sabre was safely removed from alien hands… paws... various grasping appendages, and he was currently out of reach from those who might be hunting him.

He was also without a doubt stranded upon this world and had little to no memory of what it was that had led him here other than faint recollections of fire and an irritating headache when he tried to discern more than that.

Frustration was paramount amongst his circulating emotions. He did not appreciate the current aimless trajectory his meteoric life of constant conflict had taken. This was the first time in his life he did not have a clear and present plan. ONI had seen to it that he would always have something to do, assassination or retrieval, whatever task they had set out for him. He could always rely on his superiors to have his next set of orders when he contacted them after an operation.

Now he was on his own, and there were no more orders trickling in.

 _Find a way back._ Six thought to himself.

That was a plan…

Wasn't it?

Four simple words that disguised an inestimably complicated directive. It was hard to find a way back when he didn't even know where the hell he was. Was he still even in the Milky Way? Or had something catapulted him into the infinite cosmos?

No. He had to believe there was a way. Somehow he would find a means to get off this planet of felinoid aliens. He had to stop the Covenant. He had to save humanity. He had skills that were needed, skills that made him valuable, made him… wanted.

Six _needed_ to get back home, to the people that needed him, that gave his life purpose. He had to return to use the skills that validated everything that had happened to him. He had to have his vengeance for his mother, his father, and all the brothers and sisters he had lost to those bastard abominations.

"Hey you… you hungry?"

Soft words, spoken in tentative benevolence, infringed upon his enflamed thoughts, their gentle kindness extinguishing the raging fires that ran rampart across his mind. Order returned to his scattered focus, and once again he was able to smother his rising emotion behind the iron walls of his discipline.

His lips twisted, distorting into an expression that could have been anything from hateful disdain, to silent gratitude.

The spartan looked away from the muted luminosity of his TACPAD's holographic emitter, disregarding the material he had been subliminally compiling as his thoughts wandered.

Brenna wore a kind smile as she looked upon him, her magazine forgotten as she focused only upon him, and again he wondered at her mysterious benevolence and blind acceptance of his existence. Six did not understand why she tolerated his presence, or seemed to have any consideration for him. He may have believed her magnanimity merely a façade that veiled some hidden nefarious agenda, but it appeared utterly genuine.

Since he had lived in her home for the past few days she had not asked an explanation for why he was here, or even what he was. She did not even question why he did not verbally communicate. The feline alien, for a reason beyond his comprehension, simply… accepted him.

The spartan shook his head negatively in reply to her prompt. While the plain meal of seasoned fish and buttered rice she cooked every night was undoubtedly superior to his dwindling supplies of MRE's, he had yet to accept her offer. While she spared no adverse thought in allowing his tenure here to continue, he had no desire to press his luck. He found her compassionate cooperation… amiable, and anything that might threaten his position was to be strictly avoided.

Revealing his human features underneath his helmet would undoubtedly clue her in on what he really was. And as he had nowhere else to go, that would be unacceptable.

"Alright then." She reacted to his silent answer with the unshakable munificence that he had yet to see be challenged by his incompatible disposition. And the spartan watched intently as she rose from her cushioned seat and entered the rather small confines of her apartment's kitchen.

Six considered the act of socialization nothing more than a waste of time when weighed against the mounting importance of his responsibilities; a distraction that could not be afforded at the expanse of his diligence in humanity's protection.

But as Brenna maneuvered about, the sounds and smells of cooking filling the apartment as she set to work preparing her dinner, he felt an unfathomable sense of confusion. Kneeling in the corner of her living room and peering into a scene of domestic life, offered him a unique perception, as if he was looking through a window that separated him from something… important, something he had been missing. There was a strange desire that simmered inside him, a longing to express himself… to speak out, to interact with someone that did not instinctively view him with suspicion or hate.

And Noble Six was baffled to realize that for whatever reason, no doubt one that was absolutely foolish… he yearned for the companionship of the woman before his eyes.

 _Why?_ He asked himself.

What was it about her that he found so attractive?

Was it her kindness?

Was it her smile?

Was it the disarming incorruptibility of her pale blue eyes?

Six knew what attraction was, and possessed a moderate understating of the concept of romance. He could appreciate fine art and admire beauty in the natural world, and he understood the appeal of sexual interaction beyond the need for genetic propagation. But as a spartan, as a man tasked with the preservation of all mankind, he had little reason to satiate such unnecessary urges.

Responsibility before craving, duty above desire. Those were the tenets he lived by, what made the austerity of his life bearable.

And he had to wonder if it was his loneliness that made him feel such a way. Friends to him were few and far between, those who deserved the term were dead, he knew that much even with his tattered retention of raged memory.

He might not remember all that happened on Reach, but he did remember the end, the package and the sacrifices made to secure it. And he knew the likes of himself and Noble Team would be forgotten.

Such was the way of the world.

Six returned his attention to Brenna, watching as she worked and eavesdropping as she hummed a tune to herself, a pleasant hymn that tickled faint recollections of his childhood so long ago. She had a beautiful singing voice, as soft and pliant as velvet and haunting in its allure.

The spartan closed his eyes and listened to the harmonic sound of Brenna's purring, allowing himself to temporarily waive all of his worries and obligations. He focused carefully on the fragile memoires of his youth, of his family and the pleasant and quiet life he once had on a small colony called _Jericho VII._

Six reminisced, of a time and place where he felt well and truly happy, where he had been loved by a mother and father, and so many more.

* * *

Brenna looked over her shoulder, at the armored male resting against the apartment wall, the chin of his helmet tucked gently against his breastplate as he slept soundly.

And she smiled.

* * *

 _AN: A somewhat less intense chapter, created more to fluff up the world building and emphasize just how different this Noble Six is to his other iteration. He has more memories about his past, and still feels a connection with his family that offers him more opportunity to feel human. He understands a lot more too, although that does not mean that understating comes easily. Ah yes... is our spartan feeling the beginnings of an attachment with the unusual feline he saved? Is the poor man overwhelmed by something so simple as positive reinforcement? Will events spiral out of control and tumble into chaos?_

 _Tune in next time to find out!_

 _I was, and still am, quite humbled by the overwhelmingly positive response for this so far, and that helped quite a bit in crushing my writer's block and allowing me to type this out rather quickly. Still working on getting the next Legacy chapter out, and hopefully we can expect it to be published within a week._

 _Keep the faith!_

 _Drake_


End file.
